• Get in Touch
  • Get in Touch with our Support!
  • Privacy Policy
Friday, September 29, 2023
OvaNewsBlast.com
  • Home
  • News
  • African Americans
  • Business
  • Sports
  • Technology
  • Entertainment
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
  • African Americans
  • Business
  • Sports
  • Technology
  • Entertainment
No Result
View All Result
OvaNewsBlast.com
No Result
View All Result

Kali O Ray, director of San Francisco Black Film Festival, dies at 48

August 18, 2020
in Business
Reading Time: 6min read
A A
Kali O Ray, director of San Francisco Black Film Festival, dies at 48
0
SHARES
2
VIEWS
Share ShareShareShareShareShare
San Francisco Black Film Festival co-director Kali O Ray poses for a portrait on Tuesday, June 2, 2015 in San Francisco. Photo: Lea Suzuki, The Chronicle

At any opening night of the San Francisco Black Film Festival, Kali O Ray, its director, was at the door of the African American Art and Culture Complex in his sunglasses and dreads jutting out of his hand-knit cap.

From there, he would go to the stage to introduce a film then race to the projection booth to start it. He’d be back on stage at the film’s end, and finally, toward midnight, he’d be greeting guests at the after party at the Boom Boom Room on Fillmore Street.

The festival always opened on Juneteenth. It was always a long night, and he would do it again the next night and every night for the five-day festival. When the pandemic forced it go digital this year, Ray (also known as O Ray or O’Ray) designed the website and uploaded the films each day. He was indefatigable up to the moment he suffered a stroke on July 28. He never made it out of the hospital. Ray died on Aug. 7, at age 48, during the course of the virtual festival.

“Kali was at the heart of Black filmmaking in San Francisco,” said Jackie Wright, the festival’s publicist and a friend. “He was a bearer of light and took seriously the responsibility of bringing people from all races together to examine the positive stories about the worldwide African diaspora.”

That sense of responsibility derived from his mother, Ave Maria Montague, who founded the San Francisco Black Film Festival in 1998 to establish a platform for emerging independent filmmakers to share the African experience globally. A Fillmore community leader, Montague died in January 2009 after completing a radio project on the inauguration of President Barack Obama.

Ray immediately took over the festival, ran it for 10 years and increased its profile by bringing in actors and directors like Danny Glover and Robert Townsend to help promote it.

“Kali picked up the mantle to carry on with his mom’s legacy,” said Mayor London Breed in a video statement posted to the SFBFF web site. “I am so grateful to have known and worked with Kali and will always remember him as a thoughtful and caring man.”

Kali Onaje Ray was born July 9, 1972, in San Francisco. His mother lived in the Fillmore district, and Ray split time between her home and the San Mateo home where his father Walter Ray lived.

He attended Park Elementary School and the San Mateo Christian Academy. After three years at Serra High School, he transferred to San Mateo High for his senior year, graduating in 1990.

In high school, he became a graffiti artist who used the tag “O’Ray.” His stepmother, Patricia Olivia Ray, was known throughout San Mateo as “the world’s greatest cook,” according to younger brother Kwasi Ray.

Using the kitchen of their church, Pilgrim Baptist, she ran a business called Catering by Patricia, and the brothers worked for her on weekends and after school, cooking, serving and washing dishes. Also pitching in was their best friend Jason Wilson. When they weren’t working as caterers, they sang in the church choir and performed in seasonal Christian plays.

“We were the Three Musketeers,” said Wilson, who now lives in Ione (Amador County). “We had no fear of anything when we were together.”

The Musketeers were only broken up by going to college. After what Wilson described as “an endless summer,” Ray finally went to Clark University in Atlanta, where he studied communications. He stayed in Atlanta and was building a career as a graphic and web design artist at the same time that his mother was building a film distribution company in San Francisco.

Kali O Ray, after taking over the San Francisco Black Film Festival in 2009. Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle

In a 2012 interview with the BayView newspaper, Ray described the SFBFF as starting with a mail-order video business that evolved into screening films in a theater.

His mother’s motivation was to combat stereotypes that “follow the lame format we are used to: the tired scene of us singing and dancing, cooning, playing maids and slaves, or worse, dressing as a woman for comic value,” he said in the interview.

“If you enjoy positive roles, stories that uplift the Black race in America, and film that you may never see anywhere else, then this is the festival you should attend,” Ray said. “We concentrate on breaking the mold in which African Americans and the diaspora are many times pigeonholed. This was my mother’s vision, and this is the vision of the SFBFF for life – and that’s a mighty long time.”

But not as it turned out for Ray or his mother. She also died of a stroke, which she suffered four days after the Obama inauguration in January 2009. She was 64.

Ray and his mother had discussed the possibility of moving the festival to Atlanta to take advantage of a larger Black population. But in the end, he decided it belonged where it started. He’d met his wife, Katera Crossley, in Atlanta, they moved into his mom’s apartment in the Fillmore Center, and he took over as director of the film festival, with Crossley as artistic director.

San Francisco Black Film Festival co-directors Kali O Ray (right) and Katera Crossley (left) pose for a portrait on Tuesday, June 2, 2015 in San Francisco. Photo: Lea Suzuki, The Chronicle

“Kali had layers. The man was busy,” Crossley said, noting that Ray was a photographer and videographer who was making a documentary film on the Filmore after redevelopment. He also produced the Salsa Festival at the Fillmore Center, managed several restaurant websites and worked nights as the doorman and DJ Greenlove at the Boom Boom Room.

“The Fillmore community was very important to him,” Crossley said

Ray’s work in promoting Black filmmakers reached much farther, all the way to Nigeria and South Africa where he had formed a partnership between the SFBFF and the Durban International Film Festival.

The SFBFF has been extended this year through Aug. 30, as an online offering. It will continue on, normally running in June at a variety of theaters and community centers.  Crossley will take over, along with Ray’s son Kali Jr. and daughter Cree, and Crossley’s son Ahmad Clayton. This will bring a third generation into the event.

“I know that the legacy he left behind with this festival will continue to serve young Black artists for years to come,” said Mayor Breed in the video.

Survivors include his wife and partner of 20 years, Katera Crossley of San Francisco, daughter Cree Ray of San Diego, sons Kali Ray Jr. of Atlanta and Ahmad Clayton of San Francisco, father Walter Ray, of Little Elm, Texas, brothers Kwasi Ray of Charlotte, N.C., Andre Johnson of Folsom and Darryl Johnson of San Francisco, and sister Rhonda McClinton of DeRidder, La.

“Kali loved life and lived it,” said Wilson. “He accomplished a lot for 48.”

Kali O Ray in 2009. Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle

Credit: Source link

ShareTweetSendSharePinShare
Previous Post

INSIGHT: 2020 to end 20-year streak of female Indy 500 drivers

Next Post

Mississippi narrows the list of replacement flags

Next Post
Mississippi narrows the list of replacement flags

Mississippi narrows the list of replacement flags

  • Trending
  • Comments
  • Latest
These comments are controversial, irresponsible, troubling and over the line — even for Judge Jeanine Pirro – Poynter

These comments are controversial, irresponsible, troubling and over the line — even for Judge Jeanine Pirro – Poynter

August 13, 2020
Sparkly Gowns and Drapey Black Dresses Rule the 2022 ‘Business of Fashion’ Gala Red Carpet

Sparkly Gowns and Drapey Black Dresses Rule the 2022 ‘Business of Fashion’ Gala Red Carpet

October 2, 2022
Retailers try to curb theft while not angering shoppers – ABC 10 News San Diego KGTV

Wheat Edges Higher as Hostilities Escalate Again in Black Sea – Bloomberg

August 30, 2023
UVA Volleyball | Bowie Making Immediate Impact – Virginia University

James Blount, publisher of About…Time magazine, has died at 80 – News10NBC

September 29, 2023
UVA Volleyball | Bowie Making Immediate Impact – Virginia University

New Louis Armstrong musical, ‘A Wonderful World’ debuts at Saenger Theatre – WGNO New Orleans

September 29, 2023
UVA Volleyball | Bowie Making Immediate Impact – Virginia University

FACT SHEET: Biden-Harris Administration Highlights A Record of … – US Department of Education

September 29, 2023
UVA Volleyball | Bowie Making Immediate Impact – Virginia University

What to see, do and eat at the 2023 Texas State Fair – The Dallas Morning News

September 29, 2023
UVA Volleyball | Bowie Making Immediate Impact – Virginia University

How Gen. Charles Brown Became Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff – The New York Times

September 29, 2023
UVA Volleyball | Bowie Making Immediate Impact – Virginia University

Chicago's trailblazing Black photojournalists discuss their work – Chicago Tribune

September 29, 2023
UVA Volleyball | Bowie Making Immediate Impact – Virginia University

Interview: Why Coach Prime's arrival at CU is a movement for Black … – Colorado Public Radio

September 29, 2023

Recent News

UVA Volleyball | Bowie Making Immediate Impact – Virginia University

ODU Great Penicheiro Returns to Norfolk for Alumni Association … – Old Dominion University

September 25, 2023
UVA Volleyball | Bowie Making Immediate Impact – Virginia University

Art Meets Athletics in Celebration of African American Achievement … – Joplin Globe

September 26, 2023
UVA Volleyball | Bowie Making Immediate Impact – Virginia University

PNW Pridecast: Study Away Opportunities Relaunch, Core … – Purdue University Northwest

September 28, 2023
UVA Volleyball | Bowie Making Immediate Impact – Virginia University

Fact-check: What Republican candidates claimed in the second presidential primary debate – NBC 6 South Florida

September 28, 2023
OvaNewsBlast.com

A reliable source for African American news, from a different lens. Yours. News about us, by us.

Follow Us

Recent News

UVA Volleyball | Bowie Making Immediate Impact – Virginia University

FACT SHEET: Biden-Harris Administration Highlights A Record of … – US Department of Education

September 29, 2023
UVA Volleyball | Bowie Making Immediate Impact – Virginia University

What to see, do and eat at the 2023 Texas State Fair – The Dallas Morning News

September 29, 2023

Topics to cover !

  • African Americans
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • News
  • Sports
  • Technology
  • Get in Touch
  • Get in Touch with our Support!
  • Privacy Policy

© 2020 ovanewsblast.com - All rights reserved!   Download Our App   Read News on odbnewsblast.com

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
  • African Americans
  • Business
  • Sports
  • Technology
  • Entertainment

© 2020 ovanewsblast.com - All rights reserved!   Download Our App   Read News on odbnewsblast.com