{"id":26177,"date":"2023-04-27T12:13:35","date_gmt":"2023-04-27T19:13:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=26177"},"modified":"2023-04-27T12:13:36","modified_gmt":"2023-04-27T19:13:36","slug":"boots-rileys-im-a-virgo-shows-off-oakland-and-delights-audiences-at-sffilm-fest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2023\/04\/27\/boots-rileys-im-a-virgo-shows-off-oakland-and-delights-audiences-at-sffilm-fest\/","title":{"rendered":"Boots Riley\u2019s \u2018I\u2019m A Virgo\u2019 shows off Oakland and delights audiences at SFFILM Fest"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The imaginative new show about a 13-foot-tall teen explores Riley\u2019s political philosophy and critically examines capitalism\u2019s impact on the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

by\u00a0Azucena Rasilla<\/a><\/strong> April 26, 2023 (Oaklandside.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/
Director Boots Riley on the the red carpet for the closing night of the SFFILM Festival and screening of his Amazon series “I’m A Virgo.’\u00a0Credit:\u00a0Amir Aziz<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A donation to The Oaklandside goes beyond the newsroom.<\/strong> We amplify community voices, share the power of real information, and investigate systems, not just symptoms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Donate<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The SFFilm festival<\/a> closed out this past Sunday, April 23, with a screening of the first four episodes of Boots Riley\u2019s Amazon Original series I\u2019m A Virgo<\/em><\/a>. <\/em>The avant-garde TV show follows the life of a 13-foot young Black man named Cootie (played by Emmy-award-winning actor Jharrel Jerome) as he navigates life in Oakland while experiencing the intricacies of friendship, love, capitalism, and gentrification. The show explores how capitalism finds and exploits individual uniqueness and then discards it once it\u2019s no longer profitable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m not taking for granted that people will like it, but I think people will,\u201d Riley told The Oaklandside ahead of the Sunday screening. \u201cI\u2019m excited. It\u2019s going to be fun.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"SFFILM
Director Boots Riley and actor-producer Jharrell Jerome on the red carpet for the closing night of the SFFILM Festival and the screening of Riley\u2019s Amazon series \u201cI\u2019m A Virgo\u201d in San Francisco. Credit: Amir Aziz<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The show wowed audiences when it premiered last month at SXSW<\/a> in Austin, Texas. Back at home for its San Francisco premiere, the Bay Area audience was equally thrilled<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Riley began writing the concept for this and other scripts in 2019, and the next year when the pandemic started, he had more time to devote to his ideas. \u201cI set a morning ritual because I was stuck in the house,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s proven pretty effective.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The series, which will begin streaming later this summer<\/a>, was mostly filmed in Louisiana, with exterior shots filmed in Oakland, including aerial views of the Grand Lake Theater, downtown Oakland, and even NYC Buffet, a highly recognizable East Oakland restaurant on 42nd Avenue and International Boulevard. The Ruby Room, a longtime bar on 14th street, also makes an appearance. Tune-Yards<\/a> provided the musical score. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne part that can sound very altruistic is that I want to help the art scene here. I want people to be able to access the means to make their art,\u201d Riley told the audience during the post-screening Q&A in San Francisco. \u201cIt\u2019s important to me, but it\u2019s also very selfish. This is where I\u2019m from, and I\u2019m a better artist when I\u2019m here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
A still from the upcoming Amazon series \u2018I\u2019m a Virgo.\u201d Credit: courtesy of Amazon Studios<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

One issue preventing more productions to film locally, Riley told the Oaklandside, is the high cost of living in the Bay Area. \u201cIf you want to make it easier to do music or film, then rent has to be cheaper,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oakland\u2019s population increased by about 50,000 people between 2010 and 2020 according to the U.S. Census Bureau, but housing production grew at a much slower pace, contributing to a housing shortage<\/a> in the city. Over the same 10-year period, the number of vacant housing units in Oakland plummeted from a little over 15,000 to about 10,500. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Riley\u2019s embrace of Marxist ideology<\/a> plays throughout the show, much like the themes in his 2018 feature film debut, Sorry to Bother You. <\/em>In one of the episodes, a friend of Cootie, Jones (played by Kara Young), tries to recruit him to help with an eviction defense action for tenants in Fruitvale during a rent strike. The scene is fictional but not far-fetched; it echoes a real scenario that played out in 2021 when 21 tenants organized and sued their landlord<\/a> over habitability issues at their apartment complex in Fruitvale. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Evictions and how they affect low-income residents in Oakland are things that Riley has been paying attention to. On April 19, the Oakland City Council voted to end its eviction moratorium<\/a> on July 15 while also adopting new tenant protections. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe idea of phasing out the eviction moratorium, at all, is something I\u2019m not down with,\u201d he said. \u201cIt all gets put on the renters and on poor people in general. Every question comes down to: How are poor people going to handle it?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Emmy-award-winning actor Jharrel Jerome stars as \u201cCootie,\u201d a 13-foot-tall teenager. Credit: courtesy of Amazon Studios<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Even though Riley wasn\u2019t able to film in Oakland as much as he would have liked due to the high cost and lack of tax incentives for filmmakers<\/a>, he doesn\u2019t believe the city should model itself after other more thriving filmmaking cities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The state of Louisiana, where his show was filmed, offers a 25% tax credit on production costs for qualified in-state production expenditures, according to the state\u2019s motion picture production program<\/a>. Still, said Riley, it isn\u2019t nearly enough, especially considering the sizeable tax breaks the state affords to other industries, including Big Oil. For example, in a 2017 report<\/a>, Exxon Mobile was found to have avoided paying nearly $700 million in property taxes for 20 years due to exemptions\u2014money that would have been used to pay for schools, police, parks, and other municipal services in Baton Rouge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a rip-off to the state of Louisiana,\u201d he said. \u201cI didn\u2019t realize what was happening until I was there.\u201d Oil companies in the state are also yet to pay their fair share for oil spills and other pollution incidents<\/a>, which have exposed the state\u2019s crumbling infrastructure<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou think we have problems with potholes here in Oakland? You go to Louisiana, and your car can get stuck in a pothole. You can fall into a pothole and have to climb out,\u201d he said. \u201cSo I wouldn\u2019t want to use a model like that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Riley would like to see the city of Oakland provide filmmakers with rebates for using city services and city-owned places, especially empty spaces. \u201cA lot of these buildings are just sitting there in the same way that housing is sitting empty,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even though it currently might not make financial sense to film locally, he believes that it is worth it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs an artist, I want to tell our stories. And even if I weren\u2019t from here, I\u2019d want to be filming in places that feel new and have different kinds of terrains, landscapes, and people,\u201d he said. \u201cThe Bay Area is for that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m a Virgo premieres later this summer on <\/em>Amazon Prime Video<\/em><\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n