New Doc Feature: Who the Hell is Regina Jones?

Host Sandra Abrams chats with publishing trailblazer Regina Jones and Soraya Sélène, one of the co-directors of the new documentary, “WHO THE HELL IS REGINA JONES?” The film tells the remarkable story of Jones’s journey from being a financially struggling young mother of five to witnessing the Watts Rebellion in 1965 to creating and running SOUL newspaper. SOUL became a nationwide publication, scoring scoop after scoop with some of the era's biggest artists, like Aretha Franklin, James Brown, Diana Ross, Gladys Knight, and Stevie Wonder. SOUL was where Black artists could get coverage. After her marriage ended, the newspaper shuttered, and her mother died, Jones explains how as a Black woman she navigated all the trials of life during that tumultuous time. Regina and Soraya also reveal how the film came to life thanks in part to the amazing SOUL archive that Jones’s grandson is preserving. 

To learn more about Who the Hell is Regina Jones, visit https://whoisreginafilm.com/ or follow the film on Instagram and Facebook @whoisreginafilm

You can watch the trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZRdpxKUxKU

Learn more about co-director Soraya Selene at www.sorayaselene.com and on Instagram @soraya_selene

Learn more about co-director Billie Miossi at www.billy-miossi.com and on Instagram @billy_miossi

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Transcript

00:01 - VO (Host)
Quiet on the set All together Action. 

00:10 - VO (Host)
Welcome to Media Maker Spotlight from Women in Film and Video in Washington DC. We bring you conversations with industry professionals for behind-the-screens insight and inspiration. 

00:24 - Sandra Abrams (Host)
Regina Jones is the publishing trailblazer from LA you never heard of. But in this episode you're going to learn who the hell is Regina Jones, which is the title of a new feature documentary. The film shines a light on her resiliency as a Black woman in difficult times and how she shaped pop culture by publishing Soul Newspaper, the first publication to focus on Black music and the Black experience. I'm your host, sandra Abrams, and today I'll be chatting with Regina Jones and one of the directors, soraya Saleem, of this new film. So a little bit about Regina. She was married at 15 to Ken Jones, settled with five kids by the time she was 21. 

01:07
Regina grew up in the Watts section of LA. That's when the riots happened in August of 1965. We're going to ask her to talk about why that was so pivotal. But within a year she and her husband started Soul. Then he went to another career and she was running this publication until it shuttered. But then, as the film shows, she rose like a phoenix to come out on top, threw it all. A little bad about Soraya she's co-director of the film but also works as a cinematographer on documentary and narrative projects. Born in France, she was raised on the Lower East Side and from there she got her MFA at UCLA and is a Brown Girl Doc Mafia member. So I think that's kind of interesting. She sounds very fierce. She's also an educator teaching at Cal State. Welcome Regina Jones and Soraya Saleem to the Media Maker Spotlight. 

01:59 - Soraya Saleem (Guest)
Podcast. Thank you so much for having us, and they would kill me if I didn't correct. It's actually CalArts. Calarts, yes. 

02:10 - Sandra Abrams (Host)
CalArts. All right For all of our students who are members and listening. Just look it up, CalArts. Okay, that may be a school you want to go to in the future, Thank you. So congratulations on the film. We're talking ahead of time of the DC premiere that's going to be on Sunday, February 2nd at the National Gallery of Art to celebrate Black History Month. I don't know if either of you have been to National Gallery of Art to see films there. 

02:38 - Soraya Saleem (Guest)
I have not. I'm very excited about it it. 

02:46 - Sandra Abrams (Host)
It's a beautiful setup there and really you're going to go wow, this is gorgeous, it's a great place to see a film. So before we start, I wanted to ask Regina in the film you are calling Aretha Franklin and I was like, oh my gosh, I saw Aretha Franklin once in concert and I said so. You just picked up the phone and called Aretha. Is that what happened, regina? Tell us a little bit about that story. 

03:09 - Regina Jones (Guest)
That was how the relationship was then, god. But we go back to the. You know we were covering Aretha and writing about her soul and the whole bit and we thought everything was fine. And then she stopped being available for interviews and we couldn't get through to her. So I called her father, the Reverend Franklin, and told him we were having this problem and he says, oh, I'll fix that. That'll never happen again. And from then on Aretha made herself available to me and to soul anytime we needed or wanted anything. I felt we were friends, she felt we were friends. And a funny sideline story is I got a Facebook request to be friends not too long, a couple of years before she made her transition and I said back to the person I know, this isn't Aretha, tell me something that only you and I know. And she wrote back something I said we both know that. She says call my manager. And I did and very disgustedly he said yes, that's her. So we became Facebook friends. 

04:17 - Sandra Abrams (Host)
That's fantastic. 

04:18 - Regina Jones (Guest)
Yeah, so when she and Glenn Turman got together, you know, I called her to tease her about her relationship and finding love again, and that was what that call was. 

04:30 - Sandra Abrams (Host)
Oh, I love that story. Well, to go back to the film, who the Hell is Regina Jones? I saw it. I loved it. I thought it was fantastic. Soraya, I wanted to ask you how did you get involved with this project? What's the connection there? And I guess the follow-up to that is why would Regina agree to do this project? 

04:53 - Soraya Saleem (Guest)
Well, we are all so grateful that she did agree to do the project. So I'm the co-director with Billy Miasi, and he had been working on this idea of finding three different reporters in three different time periods during Los Angeles uprising, so the Watts Rebellion, the uprising after the Rodney King verdict and then the more recent Black Lives Matter protests, and in this research he discovered this article that Regina had written 25 years after the Watts Rebellion in the Los Angeles Times, and in speaking with Regina he realized that her story was way more fascinating, and so when I came on is when they started doing more filming in Los Angeles and they needed somebody local, since Billy is in Cincinnati, our producers in Chicago, our editor is in Lisbon and I, as a director, cinematographer, was able to film locally and get close with Regina and spend a lot of time with Regina, and so it was a natural fit. I really loved the story and Billy and I got along really well and was, you know, a good match for our skill sets. 

06:05 - Sandra Abrams (Host)
So that's how I became involved. So, regina, why did you agree to this? You know you, you had, you know you have people following you around with a camera. 

06:14 - Regina Jones (Guest)
It seems like you know when they reached out to me it was about the Watts riots and I was happy to be one of the little cogs in the wheel talking about it, because I happen to have been the radio telephone operator at Los Angeles Police Department that got the first officer needs help call regarding the Watts riots. Through all those horrors and the feelings and I'm noticing now I'm not I'm talking about it, not feeling the pain in my gut, but even when interviewed I could still feel that officer needs help, officer needs help. And then please identify yourself, where are you? And there was no one there and that feeling of someone's life in your hands and you're helpless and paralyzed. 

07:06
And you know, I worked through that and did Soul and then, about 25 years after the riots, something in me said to write the story for the LA Times and I was a publisher. I dealt with the business aspects of running Soul, not the writer's part. But I wanted to write this story and I reached out to a friend who was a writer and I said I've got this story I want in the Times. Can you help me, karen? You could hear her like oh God, I don't know what I'm going to do, because if it's awful, you know, and she can't write, what am I going to do? She said send it to me, and I sent it to her, and then you could just hear the sigh. That it was pretty good, but it was from my heart, it was. You know, I wrote what I felt. 

07:51 - Sandra Abrams (Host)
Right, and that's the best type of writing, yeah. 

07:54 - Regina Jones (Guest)
Yeah, yeah. So you know. So we're doing this thing about the Watts riots and I'm thinking nothing of it. And then suddenly I don't remember how far we were in they said, well, we'd like to make this just about you, not about the Watts Riots. And Billy was so kind and easy to work with that he had lulled me into a feeling of trust and safety and not fear, because the camera, people with him and everybody. And then Soraya came in and, if I remember correctly, she came over to film my was it the 80th birthday and it was my 80th birthday party, which was right after I had lost my oldest son, who had died. But they were all so kind and respectful and I mean it just. And then Soraya, with her female wisdom, picked up all the female aspects and zeroed right in on me as a director. I don't know what they talked about that I wasn't privy to, but somehow or another they became a duo as directors and we were just on to the point of Billy coming to town and picking me up and taking me to be filmed at CalArts, sometimes with Soraya. So you know, they had me in this bunting like a baby. They were taking such good care of me. 

09:23
It never occurred to me what I was actually doing and it really kind of brought me as a. I guess it carried me through a lot of my grief, filled in things, instead of sitting there thinking about my losses. It kind of re-established my wanting to contribute more to society and help people like me who, against all odds, are still standing, and it's because I've kept getting up over and over again. If I tripped and fell or I got knocked down or I lost everything, I just have always kept getting back up and I said that's what I want to communicate. If it helps one person out there to hear my story and then say I'm going to get up and do this, then I have done what my work is here on this planet. 

10:15 - Sandra Abrams (Host)
It really does tell that story, especially the way the film is crafted, because at the beginning you're at your beautiful home, you've got your doggies. Beginning, you're at your beautiful home, you've got your doggies, and then towards the I don't want to give away the end, but towards the end, there you're with your doggies and you can. You know that domestic setting, but then in between you see the pain, the suffering, the resiliencies and, like you know, at one point you're talking about how you're gonna. You may lose your house. You know that beautiful home that you had all those fantastic memories in with your sons and your daughter, and so the way they crafted that was really fantastic. I don't know if, soraya, you said consciously this is how we're going to do the film, or was there something that you said okay, this is how we want to bridge and put that together? 

11:07 - Soraya Saleem (Guest)
Well it was. I mean, it was so much fun working with Regina, but she's very savvy and she picks things up really quickly and she can see what we were trying to do often, or she would take it in and look around and say, oh I see what you're doing, I see what you're trying to, the connections you're trying to make. And so when we talk about collaboration in documentary, I mean it wasn't just between Billy and myself, or the editor, the producer. I mean our main collaborator is our participant and it's our protagonist, which is Regina, and she really was the best kind of collaborator in that she is so smart, Her writing is so good. We really pulled from all her writing, her material, and she graciously shared it with us. So I think she picked up on things we're trying to do pretty quickly and we were very transparent about it. 

12:03 - Sandra Abrams (Host)
Yeah, that the part where you're reading from your journals were so riveting and just emotional. I just thought it was fantastic. Why did you agree to share what you had written in your journals? Because they are so personal, you know, and what you had been going through you know throughout this. You know time. 

12:24 - Regina Jones (Guest)
Sandra, I was blessed early on with writing, joining a Writing to Heal workshop. 

12:32 - Sandra Abrams (Host)
Oh, fantastic so. 

12:33 - Regina Jones (Guest)
I've done years and years and years of different writing groups, and so, in addition to journaling, I've gotten used to sharing my stories and listening to other people's stories and filming. The film gave me so much positive energy that I made a decision to put all not all, but some of my writing in a book. I put it together for my 13, 14 grandchildren. 

12:58 - Sandra Abrams (Host)
Did you say 13 grandchildren? 

13:00 - Regina Jones (Guest)
That's crazy and one great, yes, 13 grands. And one great, oh, congratulations, Thank you. And so I put it together in a book and actually last year, on February, self-published pieces of my life which contains selected writings from this, and I would have never done that have we not been working on this film. So that's one of those things you know, on those to do list you have. 

13:23 - Sandra Abrams (Host)
I got it done. Yeah, regina, really no. A lot of people say I'm going to do it and then don't, so that that was really great. Well, speaking of grandchildren say I'm going to do it and then don't, so that was really great. Well, speaking of grandchildren, I want to ask about you. Had your grandson, matt. He was also part of this and he's helping you with the archiving. Now did you say, oh, I'm going to get rid of this stuff in the garage? 

13:43 - Regina Jones (Guest)
And that's what happened, Like if you had done that, we may not be here, so Okay, the joke is that when I left Seoul, I left all of that behind and I didn't care what happened to any of it. I was broken. Wow, oh, I'm so sorry. In 80, my marriage of 20 some years fell apart. 81, my mother died and 82, seoul went underground. So I was a mental wreck, to say the least, and the people running the paper kept everything, basically stole it. 

14:15
But I made a decision okay, it's all out of my life and I'm through. And then a friend went to the people that had it and demanded that they get it to me. So one day, out of the clear blue, a truck drives up and 18, four drawer file cabinets are loaded from the truck into my garage. So now I have a gouache full of soul history. And then I made a decision that I wanted to donate it to UCLA, to their archives. Well, that was only a part of those 18 file cabinets and I was going to get rid of the rest. And my grandson, matthew, who was my firstborn grandchild grandson, he said oh no, grammy, we're not giving them this, we're not giving them that, we're keeping this. I'm organizing this. I hadn't realized that he had been watching me for a long time and even lived with me for a short period and he would pitch in and help and he would preserve. So he was studying and learning more about his grandmother than anybody else knew and he just started archiving it. 

15:18 - VO (Host)
He set up a website. 

15:21 - Regina Jones (Guest)
I mean he's just done everything. And the reason that the materials were there and available when they came to me and said, well, what do you have? It was because Matt had preserved everything. When they came to me and said, well, what do you have? It was because Matt had preserved everything. I mean literally more than I ever imagined. He saw the importance of it. He even had the notes where I interviewed Michael Jackson at one point for I think it was Vibe magazine and he had watched me do it and prepare and the whole bit, and he had preserved the handwritten notes that I was going from. I mean just everything. He had it all. So it made it really easy for me and it was very helpful for Billy and Soraya because Matt had done this. He contributed. 

16:09 - Sandra Abrams (Host)
That's wonderful and, soraya, that must have been such a gift to you and Billy as documentary filmmakers to have these primary sources. You know not. You know something that you went to the for archiving and keeping such good care of that. 

16:33 - Soraya Saleem (Guest)
That wasn't the only wealth of primary sources, the writing that Regina contributed to the film, and we discovered that as we were filming. So that's the film where she's pulling those journals out. We're discovering it while she's kind of revealing it, as well as this wealth of Super 8 videos, all her home videos, and we had the archives from Seoul. We had the personal archives and then, of course, we had the archives from the Watts. Just is such this rich history, personal history and Los Angeles history and Seoul magazine history and, yes, a dream for a documentary. 

17:10 - Sandra Abrams (Host)
It really, really amazing. I wanted to ask there was the recording, so not you talked about Michael Jackson. The other thing you had the recording where you called Mick Jagger up and then you had James Brown was doing a column for Soul Magazine. I was like James Brown. I was like, wow, how you know? How did something like that come about, james? 

17:31 - Regina Jones (Guest)
loved. He was on the first issue of the cover. He and Mick Jagger were on the cover of the first issue of Soul and James was a fan of Soul from the very beginning and he made himself available to whatever we needed or wanted. And we asked him to write something one time and he did, and then we talked him into a column. That's great. He did. That did that. You know he treated us like family and you know backstage passes. You know the whole, the whole thing all right. And whenever he was in town, we sat down. One of my writers staff writers sat down with him and got him to talk and she got material for him to write his columns. 

18:11 - Sandra Abrams (Host)
Oh, wow, she knew he didn't sit down and write them. No, but it was just the idea of it. I was like, okay, I have to find out more about this story, you know? Yeah, so no, that's really great. I wanted to ask when you were deciding, you know how to move forward. I mean, then at one point you're talking about how you were working in the store, how did you get this resiliency to continue to move forward? Where did that come from? 

18:38 - Regina Jones (Guest)
I'm not sure. I'm an only child, so I knew that I was loved unconditionally. There was no competition with anybody. And you know mama would get me to go out in the backyard and cut a switch to tear up my legs when I did something wrong. And you know mama would get me to go out in the backyard and cut a switch to tear up my legs when I did something wrong, and she praised me when I did something right. And she was the oldest of eight children and she was the big sister to all of them to the day she died. 

19:06
And I just watched how she cared for people and how she was resilient and kept getting up no matter what kind of tragedies hit the family. I saw it practiced. I believe in just her strength. I remember when her mother died I was so shocked. I was going into the living room and she was standing up dusting a table that I still have and her mother's picture was under the glass on this round table. And then she broke down and was just crying and I remember watching her from behind the door cracked, not knowing what to do because I didn't know who that was. 

19:44
And then I watched her finish what she was doing and continue on with life and her work. I watched her take her father in when he became ill and take care of him. I mean, anybody needed a place to stay, even though we only had two bedrooms and one bath. We had a couch and they could stay there. If you needed a meal, you could eat there. So that's the only thing I can say is I must have witnessed as a child that that's what you do. You keep going. 

20:14 - Sandra Abrams (Host)
And you did, you know. So you did move forward and then eventually started your own PR firm. But I guess one of the things that you talked about in the film how you just kept going but you don't cry and so and you know, and you had been through so much pain and suffering and losing your oldest, and losing your mom, and the breakup of your marriage, and you know this amazing, you know so, this publication, what did you think when you looked up at the screen and you saw the film? And you saw this is the story of your life and you know how you overcame so much of your life and how you overcame so much. 

20:51 - Regina Jones (Guest)
Sandra, to be perfectly honest with you, I've seen the film three times and even with you saying something you saw in the film, I really can't remember what saw in the film. Even watching it, there's a certain something that I kind of go blank. That that's me talking. And then even the things I share I'm surprised at I don't. My children, of course, are a little uncomfortable because I have no filter anymore and I'm beginning to learn. 

21:26 - Sandra Abrams (Host)
You've earned that right to not have that filter. But I'm also learning from friends. 

21:32 - Regina Jones (Guest)
As I say that, they said oh, you never had a filter. 

21:39 - Sandra Abrams (Host)
Oh, that's funny. 

21:40 - Regina Jones (Guest)
You know my mother didn't have a filter. And crying. I'm still concerned about that. I lost one of my best friends, my sister friend Sunday. 

21:50 - Sandra Abrams (Host)
Oh, I'm still concerned about that, I lost one of my best friends, my sister friend Sunday, and I haven't cried. 

21:53 - Regina Jones (Guest)
I haven't cried and I only just Tuesday learned that there's something about the Buddhist belief, and I've never studied Buddhism You're born and you die, but your soul is always here, and that's what I truly feel and have felt for a very long time. So my friend, who peacefully went to sleep on her sofa and died Sunday. 

22:16 - Sandra Abrams (Host)
Oh my gosh. 

22:18 - Regina Jones (Guest)
She's at peace though, and with me I don't have any. I shoulda, woulda, couldas. We were sisters, we were together. So I don't have that what I should have done differently with her feeling. I'm glad she didn't have to suffer in a hospital, because I knew that would have been something she hated. 

22:38
He was the visionary and I was the implementer, and that's who I am. I'm an implementer. You throw me a problem and I'm going to try to figure it out, and if I can't, I'm going to ask for help. I'm not going to silently, I'm going to find someone who's good in that. And my children and I grew up. I mean, you think I'm 15 and I've got five kids. And my children and I grew up. I mean you think I'm 15 and I've got five kids. And at 20, I don't know how old I was in 65. So I guess I was only 23 years old when the Watts riots happened and my husband was a reporter wanting to be a big reporter, and he always wanted to be a newscaster. He realized his dream and became the first Black television anchorman on Channel 11, kttv in Los Angeles. 

23:35
So I'm now going from handling the finances and the business end of Soul to I'm the editor publisher, so I had to learn each step of the way and I had a staff. Something I'm starting to recognize now is that I have a lot of ex-staff people that worked for Soul and are so grateful that there was a Soul in 66 and the early 70s because there'd have been no place else that they could have written. I don't even know if we talk about it. We didn't get to include in there. We talked to Steve Ivory and Bruce Tolliman, who are successful photographer and writers. 

24:13
But, Leonard Pitts came to us at 19 and ended up a writer and ended up an editor and he's a Pulitzer Prize recipient. 

24:24 - Sandra Abrams (Host)
And you gave him in his door. 

24:26 - Regina Jones (Guest)
I never thought of it like that. They have come back to me and told me that over the last few years. It makes me feel good about what I've contributed, and that's why I guess I still want to contribute some more about how we have to take care of each other and keep on giving and keep on sharing and keep on putting our hand out there to give someone a lift up. And I'd like to talk about, if I may, becoming a publicist. Okay, I am down and out. I mean, I'm doing temp work to figure out if I can even sit a day or a week in an office place. 

25:03
And a man named Dick Griffey, the head of Solar Records, invites me out to dinner and I go to dinner and we're, you know, talking, and I'm like, oh God, you know, what does he want, you know? And then finally, I kind of say you know what's the point of this dinner? And he says I want to hire you as my vice president of publicity. And I said I don't know how to do publicity. He said I'm willing to pay you for six months to prove that you do. And I said when do I start? So my career was next career was again given to me, so then I had to go learn how to be a publicist, but you had all the tools. 

25:45 - Sandra Abrams (Host)
You just didn't have the person to say, yes, you can, but can? You figured it out and you did it, and that's what makes you so resilient and such a survivor, but also an inspiration to others. 

25:57 - Regina Jones (Guest)
Really Well, thank you. But you know, even working for Dick, I mean it was okay doing publicity for a recording artist, but it didn't stir my soul, okay, I mean, you know it was work, I'm doing the work, I do the labor. But then when Jesse Jackson ran for president of the United States, we were the West Coast management for that campaign and I got to do PR with Jesse Jackson and put him on Saturday Night Live. Me and my next-door neighbor, daryl Stewart, risked our jobs and put Jesse on Saturday Night Live and flew to New York thinking we're going to both be unemployed if this doesn't work out right. We were willing to take that risk and that's I think that's my mother always willing to take a risk, always willing to make another step, go beyond where I'm comfortable. Because, you know, an hour before this interview I wanted to go crawl back in bed, pull the covers over my head and, you know, say, oh no, I can't do this. 

27:03 - Sandra Abrams (Host)
Yes, you can and you're doing it. That's it Exactly, yeah. So, Soraya, I wanted to ask you what's next for the film. So this weekend is going to be the DC premiere of the film, but what else is going on with this film? 

27:17 - Soraya Saleem (Guest)
Well, we have been hearing from so many different people and news outlets about the interest in the film and I think the word is spreading. We have another screening at the Pan-African Film Festival in Los Angeles and expect a few more in. The word is spreading. We have another screening at the Pan-African Film Festival in Los Angeles and expect a few more in the spring as well. We're really excited about getting the film out and it's finding its audience and the feedback from those who've seen the film. It's really an experience to be in a theater to just witness the audience reaction. I mean, it's just such a human story that people connect with Absolutely. 

27:54 - Sandra Abrams (Host)
So I wanted to ask you, regina so you said you have the book Are you doing any book talks, any book events that are coming up that you want to promote? No, to be honest with you. 

28:04 - Regina Jones (Guest)
A friend offered to do a book signing and I chickened out of that, wouldn't even do it. We will. You know, I got to figure out how to promote myself and I just it's not my comfort zone of doing that and I'm trying to suit up but I will push. The Pan-African Film Festival in Los Angeles is Tuesday, february 11th. Festival in Los Angeles is Tuesday, february 11th. It's a 4.20 pm screening in Culver City at the Culver Theater and they can go to Pan African Film Festival and buy tickets. Now it's listed there. I saw the film with an audience back in October and I was overwhelmed with the audience and friends and family that were there and their take on it and I was numb for quite a while after for feeling so many people moved by my story that I still couldn't digest sitting there in front of them watching and there was a lot of people that said they cried, they cried and oh God, I don't know. 

29:08 - Sandra Abrams (Host)
It's understandable. It's very moving. 

29:11 - Regina Jones (Guest)
Yeah, I don't know how I'm going to get through those two days because the e-bell, which is a woman's organization that began over 100 years ago, the e-bell of Los Angeles, is having me speak at a luncheon the day before, on Monday, at the e-bell. So those are two big events that I'll suit up. I'll show up, I'll do the best I can. I've never been a joiner of clubs and organizations, but this is something I joined that I don't know if it was 20, 30 years ago that they finally started letting Black women in, but now it's all kinds of women and it's so fabulous to see us come together with so many different possibilities. And I've not felt one ounce of prejudice or judgment from not one of these women for the eight, nine years that I've been participating, Whereas as a solo woman, black woman in 1966, 67, it was a lonely path. 

30:17 - Sandra Abrams (Host)
Well, also, and you know, women did not get the right to have their own checking account until 1974. So this was way before that that you were doing this and I just thought, oh my gosh, that was 65. It was such a pivotal year. I mean, malcolm X was shot that year, lbj signed the voting rights that year. I was just like what a crazy time. 

30:41 - Regina Jones (Guest)
Sandra, I drove into the leasing company that we'd been leasing cars from for a couple of years to get a new car. And I was driving this huge, big station wagon, you know, with five children and I wanted a new car. And I'll never forget the guy that had been dealing with us that, oh, we can't do business with you, you need your husband. And I basically gave him my middle finger and I drove downtown to Lueller's Cadillac and went in and drove out with a brand new black Cadillac Seville With my husband's signature. 

31:15 - Soraya Saleem (Guest)
Awesome, sandra, can I just harp on something, because you mentioned all these. 

31:19
You know these historical moments and Regina's just describes her experience living through those moments. And I think that's what people really respond to in this film is that it's such an American film and that we're seeing American history and learning from the wisdom of our elders. And not only is it a film that you know people can appreciate as just Americans and living through these historical periods, but specifically it's such a Los Angeles film and there are some, you know, films that just have a shared experience and a community experience, like as a city, as a community that has a specific culture. And I say this and I notice this especially because I'm coming up on like 19 years in LA and before I moved to LA it was like a foreign place and now it's my adopted home and I know it and I feel it, and so this has been a very difficult month for us here in LA, with all the fires and I'm feeling, this sense of community and this sense of pride and this outpouring of kindness and coming together. 

32:27
And I think that this film really amplifies and reflects the love of a city and a family that grew up here and has such deep roots in Los Angeles. So I think, especially now, it's a film that resonates. 

32:43 - Sandra Abrams (Host)
Yes, absolutely Well. The film is who the Hell is Regina Jones? It showcased the legacy of its amazing subject, Regina Jones, and the publisher of Soul Newspaper. She's a survivor in every sense of the word and an inspiration to all of us, and to learn more information, go to wwwwhoisreginafilmcom. Anything else you want to say in closing? 

33:13 - Soraya Saleem (Guest)
I just want to thank you for having us. It's such a pleasure just to speak about the film and to be in company and conversation with Regina. 

33:25 - Regina Jones (Guest)
So thank you so much and I just want to thank you and love meeting you and thank you for making me feel so comfortable and at home. It's getting easier and I just I love men so dearly. I have four sons and I have six grandsons and I have lots of male friends and former staff that are friends. But women we need to stick together and lift each other up because we still it's 2025 and with what's going on right now, we're still feeding the world and it's being demanded and we're still not free. And we need to be clear even if we think we're free, we're not. We're not free yet well. 

34:12 - Sandra Abrams (Host)
This film is an inspiration to all of us, so thank you again. 

34:16 - VO (Host)
Regina jones and soraya appreciate it very much thank you, thank you thanks for listening to media maker spotlight from Women in Film and Video. To learn more about WIF, visit w-i-f-f-v-vorg. This podcast is created by Sandra Abrams, candice Block, brandon Ferry, tara Jabari and Jerry Reinhart and edited by Michelle Kim and Inez Perez, with audio production and mix by Steve Lack Audio. Subscribe. To continue learning from more amazing media makers, please visit mediummakerspotlightcom for more information.