Shari Carpenter’s Kali’s Vibe tells the story of a young black woman forced to confront her girlfriend’s infidelity. Kali is a social worker more skilled at finding solutions to other people’s problems than her own. Unwilling to strike back at her girlfriend by fooling around herself, Kali is a wreck. That’s when she meets Reese, a charismatic single dad who does temp work at her office. He avidly pursues her until a coworker informs him that she’s gay. Reese switches to friendship, so it’s his shoulder Kali cries on when she sees her girlfriend out with a new flame. Of course, she and Reese end up in bed, and Kali must reconsider everything she thought she knew about herself.

Carpenter says she expects to catch some flak for creating a lesbian character who ends up with a guy, but the arbitrary nature of love and desire is part of her point. "Labels are constricting," she says. "This film is about forsaking what’s comfortable and familiar and going down an unexpected path that’s scary and unknown because that’s what feels right at the time."

Carpenter graduated NYU with a drama and dramatic writing degree in 1984, but, she says, it was Spike Lee’s She’s Gotta Have It "that was my introduction to independent film. It changed my life." Carpenter interned for Lee on Mo’ Better Blues and was script supervisor on Jungle Fever, Malcolm X, Crooklyn and Clockers. Along the way she took production classes at The New School and made a half-hour short, Since Lisa, about a romantic triangle that went to Seattle and other fests in 1994. Kali’s Vibe, five years in the writing, opened the Fifth Night screenplay reading series in ’96 and won the Martha’s Flavor fest screenplay competition in Martha’s Vineyard in 1998. Carpenter and producer Gingi Rochelle, another old Spike Lee hand, raised financing to shoot in 16mm color through a combination of investments in an LLC.

Kali’s Vibe was shot by cinematographer Kerwin Devonish (Hav Plenty) in Manhattan and Brooklyn over 23 days this summer.

Maverick singer-songwriter Me’Shell Ndegeocello is composing the film’s score. Kali’s Vibe should be done by Christmas; all rights are available.

Cast: Lizzy Davis, Charles Malik Whitfield, Phalana Tiller, Akanke McLean-Nur, Yvette Brooks, Monet Dunham, Cherokee, Burnadaire Lipscomb-Hunt, Cirri Nottage. Crew: Producers, Gingi Rochelle and Michelle Henderson; Screenwriter/ Director, Shari Carpenter; Cinematographer, Kerwin Devonish; Production Design, Aimee Cavenecia; Costumes, Yvette E. Stapleton; Editor, Brunilda Torres. Contact: Gingi Rochelle, Kali’s Vibe Pictures, 594 Broadway, #903, New York, NY 10012. Tel: (917) 750-5042, Fax: (718) 230-0065.

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