DUNWOODY, Ga. — Georgia State University Perimeter College student Joshua Cleveland and his documentary “The Heart of Krump” are heading to New York City to be part of the Tribeca Film Festival on April 28.
The documentary was selected by judges in the national Campus Movie Fest (CMF) as one of eight grand-prize-winning student documentaries to be shown during the festival. The CMF competition is the world’s largest student film festival, with more than 1 million students participating in filmmaking.
“The film is about dissecting and portraying the California dance style known as “krump” from the perspective of some of the dancers that live here in Atlanta,” said Cleveland, who is studying film at Perimeter College.
“It was mainly created in an attempt to take away the overall stigma of krump being a dance style focused on showing aggression and anger,” he said. “I wanted to show that not only is it an art form, but to many dancers, it’s also an outlet for coping with pain and life struggles and a place for people to find support through tough emotional circumstances through expression.”
Cleveland entered the national CMF and created the film with the help of students Donovan Stanley and Betelhame Desalegne, using equipment provided by the CMF organization. Cleveland and his fellow filmmakers edited the film in the Creation and Technology Lab on the Dunwoody Campus. It premiered March 6 on the Clarkston Campus.
In addition to the screening at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York, “The Heart of Krump” will be entered in the national Terminus film conference in Atlanta in June.