Arts & Entertainment
Menbere Aklilu has come a long way. From a struggling single mother, she is now a restaurant owner in Richmond, after moving from her native Ethiopia and a time in Italy.
Aklilu hosts an annual Thanksgiving dinner at her restaurant, Salute E Vita, where she just served a sit-down dinner for more than a thousand Bay Area homeless people. She has also begun holding a four-course Mother’s Day brunch for young single mothers. She helps Richmond and Oakland students pay school tuition.
Richmond native Donte Clark always believed his life had a purpose. Lately, he seems to have found it. Clark, 25, a spoken-word performer and show producer, is the subject of a new feature length documentary, Romeo is Bleeding, directed by Jason Zeldes. The film follows Clark as he produces an adaptation of the iconic Shakespeare play “Romeo and Juliet,” rewritten to fit a Richmond narrative. “We were trying tell our story through the lens of a story the world already…
Almost 400 volunteers spent last Saturday rebuilding Richmond’s John F. Kennedy Park. The park, wedged between John F. Kennedy High School and King Elementary, was this year’s project for Make A Difference Day, a nationwide event.
This is the first film festival for RYSE, and the inaugural theme was “Truth Be Told Justice Through My Eyes.” The festival was organized by Richmond’s RYSE youth center and is geared toward youth between the ages of 13 and 24 who are interested in social justice issues.
Families braved a chilly wind billowing across the bay Saturday to learn about nature conservation at the 12th annual North Richmond Shoreline Festival. The free event was held at the Point Pinole Regional Shoreline Park in north Richmond.
As a high school theater student, Michelle Wells was told that there was no place for the type of stories she wanted to tell. So she left her hometown and traveled around the world. Now, back home in Richmond, she seems to have found both her voice and her audience.
The seventh annual Spirit and Soul Festival filled downtown with the rhythmic beats of jazz musicians and the enticing smells of fried chicken and barbecue. Put on by the Richmond Main Street Initiative, a nonprofit organization that works to reinvigorate the downtown, the festival drew about 800 people this year–and there would have been more, organizers insisted, were it not for the sizzling heat.
Richmond boxer Jonny Perez has supported the community by helping formerly incarcerated residents readjust to life on the outside. Now, he hopes people will help achieve his goal of competing nationally.
A new exhibition of rarely seen prints by California artist Emmy Lou Packard opened Saturday in Richmond, offering visitors a glimpse of one of the Bay Area’s most noteworthy 20th century artists at work during World War II.