Ink the emotion: Donté Clark writes in one of the scenes of Romeo is Bleeding.

Two American artists felt on the top of the world upon seeing the appreciation Indonesians gave to their latest documentary, Romeo is Bleeding, during their recent first visit to the country.

Poet Donté Clark took to Instagram late last year to express his pleasure at Indonesians’ warm welcome after flying 18 hours from San Francisco, United States.

One photo showed the Romeo is Bleeding star posing with a young armed soldier at an airport and he wrote, “He says Romeo ain’t bleeding around me. Man, I appreciate you.”

On another photo of him taking a selfie with Indonesian students, he wrote, “Man, these people are so kind hearted. Warm. Everywhere I turn, someone greets me with a smile.”

Clark and director Jason Zeldes recently screened their film at @america, the US Embassy’s cultural center in Jakarta.

For 11 days, Clark and Zeldes also traveled to Surabaya in East Java and to Medan in North Sumatra, where they hosted screenings and workshops on the film, which won Best Documentary Feature in the Heartland Film Festival in 2015.  

“Everywhere we go, we meet passionate young people who are really engaging with us and asking for advice. They get burning desire to get out and make something. That’s very special,” Zeldes said.

Zeldes said the trip was initiated by the American Film Showcase, a partnership between the US State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts.

The project takes award-winning contemporary American documentaries, independent fiction films and documentary filmmakers to audiences around the world, offering a view of American society and culture.

Romeo is Bleeding raises the issue of a turf war in certain neighborhoods of Richmond, a small city known for black-on-black crime and environmental disasters, in California. The war between North and Central Richmond has raged for decades.  

Clark, who was born in the heart of North Richmond, uses poetry and hip-hop to unite people in the predominantly African-American community in his city.  

The film follows Clark and his recent play project Te’s Harmony, an adaptation of William Shakespeare’s classic Romeo and Juliet. The play mixes modern language, spoken-word poetry and Shakespearean verses.  

The play is about Te (Clark) who falls in love with Harmony (D’Neise Robinson) amid the turf war. 

The Te’s Harmony cast comprises students of Richmond-based after-school organization Making Waves Education, which has a creative arts program called Richmond Artists With Talent (Raw Talent)

In the program, Clark teaches poetry to low-income youths to help them find their voices through performances so that they can increase their self-esteem, their connection to their histories and in the end, their belief in the power of their voices will transform them and their communities.

“I always envision myself being someone important,” he says.

In Raw Talent, Clark found his talent in the literary world. The first poem he wrote was so good that his fellow students assumed that he stole it from the internet.

“Poetry is freedom of expressing yourself,” Clark said.

Zeldes met Clark for the first time through his cousin, Molly Raynor, who is the creator of Raw Talent.

Zeldes, who edited the 2013 Academy Award-winning documentary Twenty Feet From Stardom, said that he was interested in filming Clark’s history and poetry because he liked to make movies about artists.  

“When Donté starts doing poetry, it just really hits me in the guts,” he said, adding that Clark’s poems were special because they contained universal values. One of his poems about the turf war in Richmond was Find Me Guilty.  

“I am drawn to Donté because within him I see this convergence of a dark past and an optimistic future, battling for dominance in his heart and mind. I see an eternal conflict and a brilliant man who is both inspired and confined by his environment,” he said.

Through his poetry, he said, Clark embodied many qualities that were often stereotyped and looked down upon in his community.

Clark first felt suspicious when Zeldes approached him to ask for his permission to make Romeo is Bleeding

“When he came to North Richmond, everybody saw him as police [because he is white]. Whether he was a police officer or he was someone who was looking for buying drugs. Because there was a camera, oh no, you [Zeldes] were not police,” he recalled, laughing.

Clark then agreed to Zeldes’ idea because he was also a storyteller who liked to document stories.

“I don’t look at him [Zeldes] as a film director. I looked at him as friend who documented my everyday life.”    

Zeldes said that he made Romeo is Bleeding because he had witnessed a lot of divides, ranging from racial to political divides in the US.

He said he hoped that his film could encourage more dialogue not only in Indonesia but also in other countries.

“I hope my film will inspire people everywhere to create beauty where they recognize the need, so that future generations can inherit a cultural fabric made of poetry and empowerment, rather than hatred and despair,” he said.

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