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For over 52 years, educator Jane Elliott has been talking about the problem of racism in America. Ever since the morning after Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed in Memphis, Tennessee, Elliott has conducted her “Brown-eye/Blue-eye” exercise, in which she separates a room of people based on their eye color, treating the brown-eyed people better than the others. Elliott’s exercise, which began in her third-grade classroom on April 5 1968, has been praised by many, including Oprah, who had her on her show in 1992, and the rapper, Killer Mike, who recently said Elliott’s work was required homework for all of white America.

On June 13th, one day after “Loving Day,” or the day commemorating the U.S. Supreme Court decision that officially dubbed interracial marriage legal, my fiancée, Eva Walker, and I talked with Elliott over the phone. I’d been slated to speak with Elliott for a week, or so, but once our conversation was nearing its conclusion, it seemed best to ask if Eva would join the call. Eva, who is Black (I am white) and born in Seattle, Washington, has known of Elliott’s work for over a decade and considers her a hero.

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In 2011, amidst unsuccessful and recession-induced job hunts, longtime friends Chris Caldwell and Zeek Earl decided to form their own production company, Shep Films. At first, their Fremont-based company focused on making commercials, but the two decided they wanted to grow in more creative directions. Soon, Shep became a place where Caldwell and Earl could create short films—like In The Pines, which debuted at SXSW in 2012. Now, though, the duo have continued their development and are set to release their first feature film, Prospect (based on a short film of the same name) for this year’s SXSW. The feature—which follows a young girl (Sophie Thatcher) on an alien planet as she fends off harm coming at her from all sides—is tense, dramatic, and includes some standout cameos that I won't mention; it also stars Pedro Pascal and Jay Duplass, the latter of whom is involved with another Seattle-produced film that is also showing at SXSW, Lynn Shelton's Outside In.

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A columnist for the New York Times, author of the bestselling memoir, Shrill: Notes From a Loud Woman, and former Stranger critic, Seattle writer Lindy West is known around the world for her vivid commentary on and critiques of conventional culture. She uses humor and her particular brand of keen insight to cut through many of our cherished or unchallenged beliefs.

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Outside In is the new feature-length film by Seattle director, Lynn Shelton. It premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2017, is opening in the Emerald City on April 6, and had its US premiere at SXSW on March 10. It's about a convicted felon reentering society—reentering his former hometown—in Snohomish County, Washington. But the movie, which stars Edie Falco as Carol (the school teacher) and Jay Duplass as Chris (the ex-con), is also about the fleeting and changing nature of human connections, about generation gaps, and the difficulty of parsing passion from love.

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If you’re on the internet, it's possible you saw the recent video for “Come Correct,” a song collab by MCs Gabrielle Kadushin, aka Gifted Gab (from Seattle) and Blimes Brixton (of San Francisco). Or perhaps you checked out the clip shared by UNILAD Sound, or you saw it on Urban Leak's Leak of the Week, or on Born Famous, which amounts to more than 10 million views, all told. That's enough to ensure that the video's stars are on their way to becoming household names in hiphop. Both women were also named in Pandora's Predictions Chart (and then name-checked on Billboard) this past February.

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Sadie, the latest feature film from Seattle director, Megan Griffiths, debuted this past weekend at SXSW. It is a close-up look at the life of a 13-year-old girl (Sadie, played by Sophia Mitri Schloss) living with her mother (Rae, played by Melanie Lynskey) in a trailer park. Sadie’s father has been away serving in the military for years, and the two only communicate through the rare handwritten letters. Sadie, a smart but frustrated student, begins to test the bounds of her day-to-day life and, well, you have to watch the film to find out the rest. It features a very recognizable cast (including Danielle Brooks of Orange Is the New Black fame), is scored by Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready, and it's moving, well crafted, and honest. It’s also quite pertinent to today’s culture of hostility and violence. To get a sense of the film's genesis and themes, I chatted with Griffiths over the phone as she drove from San Antonio to Austin.

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