Jos Duncan

Jos Duncan has the opportunity to have her work as a cultural producer documented by a filmmaker and videographer. A series of short videos will be made during her event, 11 Days of Love Stories, that she’s directing with her nonprofit social enterprise Love Now Media, which will be held over 11 days (July 5 - 15) in 11 locations throughout Philadelphia. Each event or workshop will be free, open to the public, and hosted in partnership with a group that is making a social impact. The focus is to engage these community groups in her art for social change practice, which centers love-activism and the power of love-based storytelling and media-making within social justice work. Video documentation will affirm this practice and help Jos develop it as something that could be implemented in other cities.

Jos is a filmmaker, traditional storyteller, and dancer who re-crafts traditional tales to address contemporary issues in communities. Each summer she organizes Stories in Service Day of Neighborhood Storytelling, in which four teams of storytellers share with four neighborhoods. Jos also founded an organization, GriotWorks, which works with filmmakers and storytellers to reclaim traditional cultural practices as a form of resistance and community building. Jos challenges racism by elevating heritage and strengthening cultural identities and creating platforms for African American stories, traditions, and culture to be learned and celebrated. Her goal is to use the work she creates as a vehicle for healing, education, and bridging gaps between communities, generations, and cultures.

Jos will make a documentary film about Black Storytelling. Her film will focus on recording conversations with young poets and elders within the poet/storyteller community.  She will feature and center on their individual works and their fusion of bridging the gap between generations. Her goals include telling her personal story of being a storyteller, creating digital visual media that is accessible to audiences that may not have considered the strength in storytelling, and to distribute the documentary to schools and churches as a tool for community organizing.