We are rolling out some of our past Project Involve shorts to view online! These Project Involve shorts can now be seen on our Film Independent YouTube channel and are featuring them here on the blog with exclusive talks with the filmmakers. Applications for next year’s Project Involve are now open. This week we’re featuring Dear Mama… , executive produced by 2021 Project Involve Fellow Jordan Hart.

A cultural icon is someone who transcends mere talent, becoming a symbol that inspires, influences, and shapes how we understand music, art, and even ourselves. They capture the spirit of their time, reflecting social and political issues, and becoming role models and catalysts for change. Many of us have a cultural icon who inspires us.

But what happens when they die?

This idea intrigued Jordan Hart, 2021 Project Involve Creative Executive Fellow and Executive Producer of the short film Dear Mama… .

In the film, a father and daughter who are already uprooted by a recent personal tragedy learn of the death of rap legend Tupac Shakur.

“While developing the script, Chadwick Boseman had recently passed, and I was interested in the idea of cultural icons whose early deaths left a profound impact on the communities that looked to them for representation,” Hart says in reflection.

“At its heart, this was a story about family—specifically a Black family—navigating complicated emotional ground,” Hart continued. “We wanted to portray the love and tension that coexist in families during moments of loss, and to reflect the ripple effect of losing someone who represented so much more than just themselves.”

As the family’s loss overlaps and intertwines with the cultural shock of Shakur’s death, emotional tensions heighten, and father and daughter are forced to reconcile with their grief—and with each other.

Jordan Hart is a producer and executive who has developed projects with Academy Award-winning directors Barry Levinson, Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, as well as hit television showrunner, DJ Nash. She grew up around the US and Spain where she acquired an interest in diverse stories and voices.

She was driven to apply to Project Involve and move her focus beyond the development stage. “I was hungry to see something through, from script to screen, and Project Involve offered that opportunity,” she said. “It also had a legacy I admired—with alumni like Andrew Ahn, Jon M. Chu, and Lulu Wang, it felt like joining a creative lineage.”

Looking back on the project, Hart admires the collaborative nature of the Project Involve program and the power of teamwork.

“The filmmakers on this project were a true dream of creative collaborators. The entire team was open, generous, and fearless—willing to tackle challenges head-on and constantly iterating on the work,” Hart said. “Watching them bring the story to life with such synergy was inspiring.”

Dear Mama… premiered at South by Southwest in 2022  and was picked up for distribution by The New Yorker. It was also featured on Short of the Week and won the Outstanding Short Film (Live Action) award at the 54th NAACP Image Awards in 2023.

“The entire run exceeded our expectations and gave the film a powerful platform… and the trophies look pretty good on the shelf.”

Tags: Project Involve / video