The acerbically funny and intimate screenplay for acclaimed visual artist Martine Syms's debut film, The African Desperate.The African Desperate follows Palace Bryant on one very long day in 2017 that starts with her MFA graduation in upstate New York and ends at a Chicago Blue Line Station. Set against the lush backdrop of late summer, Palace navigates the pitfalls of self-actualization and the fallacies of the art world. Shot through with Syms's celebrated conceptual grit, humor, social commentary, and vivid visual language, The African Desperate leads us through picturesque landscapes and artists studios, from academic critiques to backseat hookups, and from the night of a wild graduation party to the morning of a lonely trip back home.

Implications and Distinctions: Format, Content and Context in Contemporary Race Film considers performances of blackness in contemporary cinema from 1990 to the present. By considering story lines, movie theaters and her own viewing patterns, Syms attempts to find the "color line" and trace its path through the distribution and exhibition of film. About the author: Martine Syms is an artist and curator based in Chicago, Illinois. Since 2007, she has been the director of Golden Age, a non-commercial project space dedicated to sharing ideas through exhibitions, performances and printed matter. Syms has programmed screenings at the Chicago Cultural Center, the Echo Park Film Center, Mess Hall and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her work has been exhibited and screened at the Gene Siskel FIlm Center, Chicago, IL; Capricious Space, Brooklyn, NY; Wassaic Project, Wassaic, NY; Green Gallery, Milwaukee, WI; High Energy Constructs, Los Angeles, CA; and other venues. She received her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2007 in Film, Video, and New Media. Implications and Distinctions is published by Future Plan and Program, a provisional publishing project featuring newly-commissioned literary works by visual artists.