Raise Your Hand

Greetings,

Thank you for taking the time to view our film Raise Your Hand. This film is deeply personal to me, the collection of stories represented are those based on my own memories growing up and those of my close friends and family.

The motivation to make this film came after attending a class lecture where the instructor carelessly, with excitement, exploited the concept of rape for a superficial discussion topic. As a survivor myself, I made the decision to take a personal risk and share my story, because I didn’t want those precious and painful biographical memories to be told without the honesty and truth they deserve. Being able to make a film about perseverance over police brutality, rape, underserved communities and their lack of opportunities, and friendship is a privilege in itself, but to be able to tell the stories of young people conquering their challenges through the arts is what makes this film so special to me, because that was me and my friends in high school.

It’s because of my real-life champions, some who are represented in this film, that I am now able to share his story, and all the stories represented in this movie. Not only are the character’s lives based in truth, but as the cast and crew joined together to make the film, they began sharing their own personal connections with the material, their stories of assault, of family struggles, of confrontations with the police. Our co-lead playing Lila, Hanani Taylor (The Orville, Criminal Minds), shared with us that her mother had an experience with sexual assault by a police officer when in school, and her mother talked her through the difficulties of the role to create the performance you see today.

The Raise Your Hand team is an eclectic mix of diverse members with mostly women in leading roles, including those of Director of Photography, Producer, Costume Designer, Production Designer, Editor, Composer, and Sound Designer just to name a few. Many of these crew members donated time, energy, and resources to the film, and lifelong friendships have been formed and strengthened through the process.

It is important to credit Miss Jearnest Corchado as our lead in the film, portraying the character of Gia, with grit and truth at its highest caliber. You can also see Jearnest in the recent Netflix release of Sneakerheads and Apple TV’s Little America to name a few. Also important to recognize are Joel Steingold (How to Get Away with Murder, Hawaii Five-0, and Shameless) who plays Amaris, Gregory Scott Cummins (Bosch, it’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia) who plays Officer McCance, and DaJuan Johnson (Bosch, Grey’s Anatomy, and Agent Carter), who plays Gia’s stepdad.

We’ve put everything we have into this film, and it’s been a long five years of blood, sweat, and tears to make sure we did everything we possibly could to do justice for every frame seen on screen. From losing four days of production sound and having to ADR without a guide track, to endless sleepless nights from working sometimes three jobs a day to pay for the film costs almost all out of pocket, to setback after setback after setback. From the tragic loss of our incredibly talented composer’s husband to the birth of new babies, we have seen it all and then some, but the perseverance of this film speaks for itself. No one ever gave up on it because every single person involved believed in these stories and believed in our team. I’ll always be forever grateful to them. In the words of our lead character Gia, “No one will hear our stories unless we tell them”.

Thank you so much for your consideration,
Jessica Rae
Writer/Director Raise Your Hand