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Logline

Southern diplomat’s daughter KATHLEEN NEAL falls in love with former San Quentin inmate ELDRIDGE CLEAVER and transforms into an iconic leader of the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California. When her husband initiates a deadly shootout, Kathleen goes on the run to the revolutionary haven of Algiers — where she becomes entangled in hijacking, adultery, and murder. A fictional adaptation of the acclaimed history book, “Love for Liberation: African Independence, Black Power, and a Diaspora Underground.”

Synopsis

In 1967, brilliant and beautiful Kathleen Neal belongs to a wholesome circle of civil rights activist college kids. However, the guys mansplain and expect girls to do all of the office work. Hailing from a respectable family, Kathleen never complains. She’s been taught that her duty as a “Strong Black Woman” is to sacrifice her own needs to uplift Black men and her community. At a youth conference she organizes, sparks fly when she meets her cultural opposite — former prisoner Eldridge Cleaver of the new Black Panther Party (BPP). Kathleen follows him to Oakland, where she’s finally free from being a good boujee Southern girl.

Kathleen dives into the campaign to free Huey P. Newton, the BPP’s cofounder, and struggles with the physically rigorous, brutally candid, and sexually free aspects of Panther life. Ashanti, a sex worker turned Panther, and Lil’ Bobby Hutton, an adoring teen volunteer, help her fit in. She ascends into an international media darling when she adopts a cool girl uniform of sunglasses, hoop earrings, miniskirt, and epic Afro. She marries Eldridge. The Cleavers become the real life Bonnie and Clyde of the radical Sixties scene. Then, Eldridge leads a fatal police ambush — without Huey’s blessing. He goes underground, while she heads the “Free Eldridge” movement. When she discovers she’s pregnant, Kathleen joins her husband on the run in the revolutionary North African capital of Algiers.

Kathleen and Eldridge establish the International Section of the Black Panther Party, connect with decolonizing activists from Africa and Asia, and befriend a White New York journalist who’s their cultural liaison. To survive, Kathleen descends into hijacking, adultery, and murder. As her Panther life and marriage becomes increasingly dangerous, Kathleen must decide whether standing by her husband — or putting herself and her children first — is the true love for liberation.
 

Meet the Filmmakers

Dr. Robin J. Hayes – Producer
Robin recently rose from Staff Writer to Co-Executive Producer on Fremantle’s historical action series Sandokan & Marianne, which is forthcoming from the producers of Transformers and Queen of the South. After graduating at age 16 from St. George’s — an elite boarding school — and later NYU, she led dozens of humanitarian aid missions to rebel communities in Latin America. At Yale, she completed a political science PhD and taught critical race theory and international affairs at Williams, Northwestern and other prestigious institutions. Then, Robin reinvented herself as an artist by writing, directing, and producing the award-winning Amazon Prime Video documentary Black and Cuba — which exhibited at dozens of film festivals and community-based organizations. She also wrote the critically acclaimed history book Love for Liberation: African Independence, Black Power and a Diaspora Underground, which was funded by the Ford Foundation and National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Robin’s collaborated with Sundance award-winning producers, Hulu, Gunpowder & Sky, and OBB Media. She was selected for The Black List/Women in Film Episodic Lab and the Women in Film Shorts Lab funded by Google. A surfing and fine art enthusiast who speaks Spanish and French, Robin currently lives in Santa Monica, California.

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Contact

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