Jehan Patterson

LONG POST WARNING, so buckle up with me. And I will TRY not to tear up writing this.

I am beyond excited to share that Many Thousands Lost has been selected for the San Quentin Film Festival. Bay Area family, we’re coming back! And I genuinely think this may be our most meaningful showing yet.

My journey as a filmmaker started from a strange place. At 8 years old, I wanted to reflect my community and the people I felt disappearing around me. I wanted film to make a difference, to heal, to change something about the material reality of where we lived. Granted, I can articulate that much better now. And I know, thats weird for an 8 year pld to want. But idk man, i was a weird kid. What do you want from me.

When I speak about incarceration, the formerly incarcerated, and their families, it hits me personally. For a second I stop being an adult and become a kid again. You’re no longer talking about something abstract. You’re talking about uncles, cousins, friends. Childhood friends who, God bless their lives, aren’t here anymore.

That stays with me because I never got the chance to show some of them what I’ve been called to do. Who I became. Truthfully, all I ever want is to share the things I love with the people who matter most to me.

That’s really where Many Thousands Lost comes from: the thousands of words, sentiments, and things I never got to say or show the people I loved before they left this plane.

So getting to bring this film to San Quentin means THE WORLD to me. I will shift every stone to be there.

I’m big into spirit. And if I can’t show this work to the people who mattered most to me in the literal sense, maybe I can in the spiritual one. I can reflect them, how I saw them, the beauty I saw in them.

To the people who always knew me as Lil’ Hanie.

Yours forever,
Lil’ Hanie