NYWIFT invites you to a screening of Catch the Fair One starting Tuesday, February 8th from Thursday, February 10th.
Kaylee “K.O.” Uppashaw, a mixed Indigenous boxer, prepares for a championship fight. Her hands are wrapped, gloves taped shut, and face greased. She pounds the mitts with her trainer, Brick. The room echoes with the strength of each hit. She’s preparing for the boxing match of her life. The crowd roars in the distance as the sounds crescendo into a fever pitch— Kaylee wakes up in a women’s shelter from a wishful dream of a life she once had. This is her reality. A boxer struggling to pick up the pieces of her life. After her shift working at a diner, Brick drives her to a clandestine rendezvous. They meet a P.I. who presents evidence that Weeta, Kaylee’s younger sister who disappeared two years ago, is possibly alive and circulating in a trafficking network. He tells her a time and place to plug herself into this dangerous world in hopes of finding her sister. Kaylee agrees and sets off on a dark and treacherous journey. Her strength and determination are tested as Kaylee fights the real fight of her life—to find Weeta and make her family whole again.
Screening Dates: Film available from Tuesday, February 8th through Thursday, February 10th.
How to See the Film: Links will be sent out on Tuesday, February 8th
Q&A: Wednesday, February 9th at 3:00pm. Moderated by NYWIFT Board Member, Yvonne Russo.
Cost: $2 Member/ $5 Nonmember
Panelists
Kali “K.O” Mequinonoag Reis is the first mixed Native American Female World Champion Boxer and current WBA Super Lightweight Champion. Kali’s mixed background includes lineage from the Seaconke Wampanoag and Cherokee tribes as well as ancestry from the Cape Verde Islands. On November 12, 2014 Reis won the IBA crown defeating Teresa Perozzi in Bermuda. This fight was extremely special to Reis due to the historical aspect surrounding her Wampanoag ancestors who were taken to Bermuda during the slave trade. In February of 2016, Kali gained another strap around her waist defeating New Mexico’s Victoria Cisneros in 30 seconds for the vacant UBF Middleweight World Title. On April 16, 2016 Reis won her first major world title in New Zealand against California’s Maricela Cornejo for the vacant Middleweight WBC World Title. Reis has been working as a residential counselor for young girls since 2010 and uses boxing to help with coping skills. She currently works for St. Mary’s Home For Children in Rhode Island and has hopes of running her own “safe haven” for youth focusing on the rising suicide and obesity rates especially targeting the youth in Native Country. Her FIGHT 4 ALL NATIONS logo is something she describes as a reminder to herself and others as to why she continues to fight.
Born in Seoul, but adopted and raised in Baltimore, Kimberly Parker is a producer based in Los Angeles. Parker is an Executive Producer on A24’s The Last Black Man in San Francisco (Best Director, Sundance 2019), executive produced by Plan B. She produced I Am My Own Mother, one of two American shorts in Cannes Cinéfondation 2018 and narrative feature Katie Says Goodbye (TIFF 2016), starring Olivia Cooke (Sound of Metal) and Christopher Abbott (Catch-22). Parker produced an interactive, gaze-controlled virtual reality film, Broken Night, starring Emily Mortimer (Tribeca, Cannes Next 2017), and her first feature as a producer, Those People, won Audience Awards at Outfest and NewFest. Parker is an alum of IFP’s Narrative Lab, San Francisco Film Society/KRF’s Producing Fellowship, EPI’s Trans Atlantic Partners, Berlinale Talents, Nevada City Film Festival’s Creative Producing Retreat, and the Sundance Women in Film Financing Intensive. She is a member of the Producers Guild of America who graduated from NYU’s Film MFA and received her B.A. in Writing Seminars and Film and Media Studies from Johns Hopkins University.
Mollye Asher is an Academy Award winning NY based producer. Most recently, she produced NOMADLAND (Searchlight Pictures), winner of Best Picture at the Academy Awards, Golden Globes, Critics Choice, and Gotham Awards. The film stars Frances McDormand and is Mollye’s third collaboration with writer/ director, Chloé Zhao. Other credits include Carlo Mirabella-Davis’ Gotham nominated film SWALLOW (Tribeca 2019, IFC Films), Chloé Zhao’s THE RIDER (Cannes Directors’ Fortnight top prize, Gotham Best Picture, Sony Pictures Classics), SXSW Grand Jury Prize winner, FORT TILDEN by Sarah-Violet Bliss and Charles Rogers (MGM/ Orion), Anja Marquardt’s SHE’S LOST CONTROL (Berlinale, SXSW, Spirit Award nominee), as well as Zhao’s debut feature SONGS MY BROTHERS TAUGHT ME (Spirit Award nominee, Sundance, Cannes, Kino Lorber). Mollye is the winner of the 2020 Independent Spirit Award’s ‘Producers 12 Award’. She is an adjunct professor at Rutgers University, a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures, and alumna of NYU’s Graduate Film program.
Yvonne Russo (moderator) is an award-winning producer, director and writer of film and television specializing in inspirational Indigenous and cross-cultural stories. As an independent producer, Russo has worked on a diverse range of productions in over 16 countries from Rajasthan, India, to the East African Nation of Rwanda. Recent credits include Woman Walks Ahead; the HBO mini-series Lewis and Clark; Viva Verdi!; and Rescuers: Heroes of the Holocaust. She’s a member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and Co-Chair of the Producers Guild of America Diversity Committee. She is also a Sundance Institute Lab Fellow and Tribeca All Access Program Fellow, and is on the board of The Language Conservancy, which works to revitalize endangered languages. She’s a contributing author for The Huffington Post and Produced By Magazine. Yvonne Russo is a member of the Sicangu Lakota Tribal Nation.
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NYWIFT programs, screenings and events are supported, in part, by grants from New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature.