Danielle Eliska is an award-winning writer, film director, photographer, entrepreneur and educator from Detroit. She’s a co-creator of an experimental art community, A LOVE LETTER TO DETROIT.
Danielle received her MFA in Dramatic Writing in Film from New York University, has gained notable screenwriting and photography recognition. Danielle was one of the inaugural grant recipients of the 2018 Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment and New York Foundation for the Arts [MOME NYFA] ‘Made in NY’ Women’s Fund in Film for her short narrative film, Shield [Digital Press Kit]. She was a 2022 Womxnhouse Detroit Resident, a 2022 Sesame Street Workshop Writer’s Room Fellow and is a 2023 CultureSource Flourish Fund | Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts grant recipient.
https://www.danielleeliska.com/- https://www.danielleeliska.com/filmdirector/v/take-flightTAKE FLIGHT (2022)
TAKE FLIGHT is an artistic film about Black agency (escaping all forms of captivity) by way of strength from Ancestral Spirits and veneration and the duality of their existence alongside us today. By weaving in aspects of Thornton and Lucie Blackburn’s story, this film honors all ancestors who came before us by way of Africa, through the perils of slavery and forced resilience with evidence of home still alive in their souls. That same power has been passed down to their descendants—fierce and sure standing—because of their determination toward freedom. With Aneb Kgositsile’s poem, Sacraments as narration, the imagery of TAKE FLIGHT captures the fullness of Black awakening, glory and splendor.
“One of these mornings
You gonna rise up singing
Then you'll spread yo' wings
and you'll take the sky.”—“Summertime”, Heyward and Gershwin, 1935