SNAP SHOT PRESS RELEASE | CURSED TOOTH TEST SCREENING

SNAP SHOT PRESS RELEASE | CURSED TOOTH TEST SCREENING

Hold your jaw & check your gums because this tooth spitting film might have you questioning your dental proclivities [& I’m not just talking brushing and flossing].

Where our love for film [& coverage of the local indie scene] has grown over the last year. It is a special treat when we get invited to preview projects from one of our very own. /CW Guest writer, Jolee Mallmann, has been biting down on their own film project where they are writer, leading actor, and co-director of a story that reveals a “quarter-life crisis of the oral persuasion”. 

They call it, Cursed Tooth.

On, Sunday August 30th, 2026, I arrived at an unassuming venue on Milwaukee’s south side. The gated yard planked by a stone wall building was marked with a small sign shaped like a tooth leading me to what I now know to be MKeUltra [a DIY performance space and recording studio run by musicians]. As the low lights and projector displayed an audioless screen that seemed to be an indie horror, the room showed dental inspired props, pub tables decorated with enlarged teeth [I would hate to see who those canines came out of lol], and BTS photos of the filming process. 

This eclectic, yet well curated event, is just an example of the intimate details of collaboration and creativity that would be displayed to us through the film. The short film takes us through a comedic yet soft horror of untethered trauma of familial bonds, where a tooth ache is more than just a pain in the mouth. Elliot [played by Jolee] is unsure about what to do, with her teeth or her life, “she grows increasingly anxious and unable to face reality”. But what if reality starts to feel surreal? Like envisioning your teeth falling out, or imaging people eating jars of teeth? Are you losing your Sh*t or have you been hexed? HOW WOULD YOU KNOW?

Those who believe in the mystic, may try to find the meaning beyond normality. But have you ever heard of a dentist performing a root canal and an exorcism at the same time? That expertise spectrum is bonkers. But that’s just it. . . creativity bites into realms that we can’t always fathom and thus,  great art that dialogues about the human experience is worth creating, watching, and chomping into [See what I did there? That was a tooth joke!]

Without getting into the gummy details [because this film is sure to get into the festival circuit and I would hate to be a spoiler], I will note that this film requires the audience to challenge what is possible. It also invites you to thoughtfully reflect on how adulthoodhood requires pieces of you that we may be reluctant to give. Is it a molar, time, connection, personal expression? Are their nightmares that haunt us, because they tap into tooth aching truths. Are waiting rooms a passive aggressive symbol of purgatory? WHO KNOWS!

From site selection, clever curation of “artifacts”, playful use of props, and strategic lighting, this team made something smile worthy. [Yikes, I can't be stopped with the tooth puns!]

Be on the lookout for future showings of  Cursed Tooth.

& as my people say when an obstacle is ahead… “Bite down.”

/Lexi S. Brunson | Editor-in-Chief /CW

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Follow us on Instagram at @cursedtoothfilm or @jolee.jpg for film updates.

Creatives in Bronzeville where are you at? | Join us for a Creative Mixer w/ the Historic King Drive BiD

JOIN US FOR SOME CREATIVE COMMUNITY CULTIVATION!

Anybody who has interest in being in the area, working in the area,

or wants to connect to creative in that area are invited. 

Deadline: December 4th, 2020 | 2nd Round of Black Talent Fund Scholarship Now Open!

Hey Black Creatives…

Have YOU Applied Yet?

Our friends at the Black Talent Fund have reached out again in the hopes of providing a scholarship to a Black creative in Milwaukee. Read the “Talent Criteria” and Apply.

Deadline: December 4th, 2020

https://www.blacktalentfund.com/apply

2nd Round of Black Talent Fund Scholarship Now Open! [Milwaukee Applicants Wanted]

APPLY! APPLY! APPLY! APPLY!

Our friends at the Black Talent Fund have reached out again in the hopes of providing a scholarship to a Black creative in Milwaukee. Read the “Talent Criteria” and Apply.

Deadline: December 4th, 2020

https://www.blacktalentfund.com/apply

Creatives in a Quarantine Blog Forum

We have created a special page for all of our Local Creatives to share your thoughts as we continue to go through this crazy time. Even though we can’t come to showcases, stop by your gallery or see you at a pop-up, we still are here. Share with us or just say hi. Every interaction counts.

Page: https://copywritemag.com/creatives-in-a

PASSWORD: SupportTheLocal

#WCW Nicole Acosta

“You can’t be what you can’t see.” - Marian Wright Edelman

This quote often holds true when thinking of career paths for people of color. Often seeing people who look like you in the same types of jobs over and over again.

This was me as a creative in Milwaukee’s advertising community.  

For the company I worked for I had quickly became the only creative of color (female too) and throughout Milwaukee’s (WHOLE) creative ad community, I knew of one Black Interactive Art Director, one Asian copywriter and about five to six graphic designers that were of color (non-white folks). This left me feeling isolated and alone for most of the beginning of my career but very disappointed in the lack of diversity and inclusion in the region.

Leading to a lot of questions: Why? Why were there no people that looked like me? Was this just a Milwaukee problem? Why did I work at an agency of 250+ people and there was only four people of color? Why don’t more people of color know that they NEED to be in advertising/marketing? Just why?

My main answer came back to the quote “You can’t be what you can’t see.”  And though it’s not that simple; Learning about new career paths and seeing people who look like you and come from similar backgrounds like you, can often change your path in life.

Now enough with me, but into showcasing people that are doing their thing to change the game. **drum roll please**

Our #WCW this week is Nicole Acosta, a Chicana-first generation Mexican-American. Born and raised in Milwaukee, WI with indigenous roots in Mexico. Nicole has made it her life’s mission to preserve cultural practices and traditions and activate safe spaces in her hometown where people can connect to their cultural identities. Whether through dance, visual art or written word, most of Nicole’s work reflects movement, oral and visual storytelling and identity. A lover of travel, Nicole seeks to learn from the origins of where our cultural practices were birthed.

Nicole holds a Bachelor of Arts in Marketing Management from Alverno College with a minor in Elective Studies and is also a dedicated student of Puerto Rican Bomba dance at the AfriCaribe Cultural Center in Chicago, IL. She is a proud graduate of the Milwaukee High School of The Arts, and prior to her transfer to Alverno, spent years at Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design and Milwaukee Area Technical College studying photography.

As an intersectional artist, Nicole’s work has been exhibited throughout the city of Milwaukee, published locally and nationally; and she has performed spoken word and dance. In most recent years Nicole has devoted her life to art education for Milwaukee Public Theatre, Walker’s Point Center for the Arts, Latino Arts, providing hands-on teaching and creating original curriculum focused on the restoration and preservation of Latinx cultural experiences. Her next career move will be in the summer of 2018 were alongside her partner they launch Botaníca Creative, a marketing-branding-photography & design agency! I’m excited.

Campaign sample photos of Pascual and young girls: Creative Direction and Photography: Nicole Acosta, Graphic Design: Jazmin Delgado 

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Also in honor of being a WOC in advertising I asked her to answer the following questions to get a different perspective of advertising life in Milwaukee.  

1. How does being a Latinx creative influence your work in advertising?

"Being a Latinx creative first and foremost automatically suggests that I will create from a place of culture or of my ethnic upbringing. Which is true to a certain point. This is where being a Latinx creative in the advertising/marketing industry becomes a challenge. When I was in my final year of college at Alverno where I earned my degree in Marketing Management, I researched agencies in Milwaukee specifically seeking POC in the industry. The results were not very surprising as you can imagine. This is where I saw an opportunity to pursue marketing and advertising, I had a niche. I could reach specific target audiences that a lot of these agencies could not. I am Latinx, bi-lingual, I stay relevant with socio-cultural trends and I take pride in being a Millennial. I consider myself a hyper-intersectional artist, meaning I have studied multiple art forms and have taught and worked hands on in some capacity throughout the years as this artist but never really knew how to make a career out of it. I binged watched MadMen for an entire month and fell in love with the idea that I would one day I would be the Latinx version of Don Draper because this is exactly how I could channel my creativity. So I befriended my partner Jazmin Delgado, a graphic designer and together we began to envision Botaníca Creative, an agency that specializes in assisting clients through the creative process resulting in visual dialogue aka visual communications. We were intentional about our branding, that we plan to launch this summer. We want to be taken seriously, as as women of color in the creative industry without our culture being at the forefront defining our work because this is not the expectation for non-woc. Although our Latinx culture is extremely important to us. We want our work to speak for itself. Being Latinx influences us creatively no doubt, and we see this in the authentic relationships we build with clients, and most importantly representing Latinx in the creative industry, we hope more young Latinx women/girls pursue careers in marketing, advertising and graphic design!"

Campaign sample photos of Pascual and young girls: Creative Direction and Photography: Nicole Acosta, Graphic Design: Jazmin Delgado

2. If you could change one troubling aspect you’ve experienced in the advertising community into a positive outcome, what would it be?

"I would say the lack of women of color in the industry. It’s such a disappointment. Most times it’s because women of color don’t have access to the same opportunities as non-woc. I feel like agencies should see this as an opportunity to recruit from local colleges such as Alverno (shameless plug) or at least offer internships. A little outreach and authentic community building goes a long way."

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Nicole continually inspires me to keep working and developing my craft so that these conversations become a lesson from the past.

Follow our #WCW Nicole on Instagram @MOSSCROWNMUJER @BOTANICACREATIVE

And if you have a story you want to share about our #WCW or an experience in advertising; let me know in the comments.

Keep creating. /Syn