Film | TV
Be Like Water – Streaming Television Series In Development
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Be Like Water (TM) is a short film and dramatic series for streaming television and/or cable networks. The series tells the story of two young black sisters, both affected by the Black Lives Matter Movement erupting in Seattle, WA and throughout America in 2020, ignited by the death of George Floyd and other black people who have died due to police brutality and systemic racism in an America on fire. The two sisters are “Jackie,” a musical artist/activist who is heavily focused on the fight to know justice and is fueled by a belief in “whatever means necessary, “ and “Ruth,” a young lawyer who gave up on her musical talent to focus on her legal career and is trying to change the system from within the existing justice system. Adding “Cameron,” Jackie's young rock star love interest, and “Josephine,” Jackie and Ruth's grandmother, a renowned Gospel and Soul singer with her own activist history in the 1960s in Brooklyn as part of the Black Panther movement. Inspired by Angela Davis, the cast of Be Like Water (TM) reveals a project where life imitates art imitates life like two mirrors facing each other. As Grandma Josephine explains to her granddaughter Jackie - “We all in the soup, you, the police, the mayor, all of us, killing each other inside this pot of soup. The real question you should be asking is - Who’s holding the damn lid?”
Barbara Benson – Streaming Television Series In Development
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Set during the late 80’s early 90’s grunge music scene in Seattle singer songwriter Lara Lavi was building an Americana music career in the middle of a musical world that brought us Nirvana, Mother Lovebone, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden. Somehow she was making it but she could not find a manager more connected than she was so one day in the madness of juggling everything the alter ego known by 100s of music industry people Barbara Benson was created. Barbara was an incredible manager and the stories in this series are true…Developed and Co-written by Lara Lavi-and Thea Chard.
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Little Dreamers – Lullabies & Love Songs For Children of All Ages
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22 years ago Lara Lavi was pregnant with her only child, Cameron, full of expectant mother love and she wrote a beautiful collection of lullabies for her unborn son. That collection became a body of work now called Little Dreamers. With original illustrations from renowned artist Karen Gilmore. This multimedia project includes illustrated book, music and plans for an animated educational children’s series addressing global warming, endangered species and other environmental issues developed with University of Washington and Toronto critical learning specialists for young children.
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From My Mother's Window​
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From My Mother’s Window captures the four month period when playwriter/producer Lara Lavi bought a cot and parked it next to her mother’s hospice bed at a Jewish hospice facility in Seattle Washington. The room had an incredible view of Lake Washington where Lara and her mother had hours and hours of conversation transforming their pained and tumultuous relationship to a place of healing and understanding by the time Lara’s mother died in her arms on December 13, 2013.
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