Last week I went to the screening of the “She Did That.” Film screening, which I have been wanting to go to one of the tour dates since last year but I just never got the chance. So I finally got the chance to go, I had found out about the screening about a week prior but didn’t buy my ticket until the day of, but it was definitely worth the money and the time!
The “She did That.” film is a documentary created by Renee Bluitt who has been a PR professional for more than a decade and created the “In her Shoes” Blog years ago. In both her PR career and on her blog she wanted to create a voice for black women business owners and entrepreneurs because she felt that the demand was there but not the support from bigger brands and news outlets. With this documentary her mission was the same but she wanted to do it on a larger scale. The film talks about black women owning businesses and how we are the largest group of people starting and owning business and thriving at a fast pace but how we lack support in funding, and the support of banks and bigger corporations to scale our businesses. It showcased how black women prevail and continue to work hard no matter what many different hats we wear and the circumstances we have to overcome. The film interviews many different women in business as they speak on their journey in their business, the bumps in the road that occurred, the problems of scaling, life/family etc. The women featured were: Lisa Price of Carol’s Daughter, Melissa Butler of The Lip Bar, Tonya Rapley of My Fab Finance, Luvvi Ajayi of AwesomelyLuvvie.com and author of ‘I’m Judging you’ and many other amazing black women. Seeing this film was very inspiring and motivating to keep pushing forward to your dreams and never give up.
After the film screening there was a panel discussion and Q&A that featured four black Detroit women business owners all in the beauty industry and Renee Bluitt herself and it was moderated by Kimberly Dobine creator of Posh and Popular. The women on the panel were: Gwen Jimmere owner of Naturalicous Natural Hair Products, Melissa Butler of The Lip Bar, Kelli Coleman and Anika Share of The Ten Nail Bar. The panel questions consisted of what made each of them decide to start their businesses, why did they choose their home of Detroit to start, what are some of the harder things they had to handle being black women in business etc. the entire panel discussion and Q&A after were so amazing. It was great just to be in the room, I saw so many beautiful connections manifesting during this event. There’s this stigma from others that black women can’t get along and that’s not at all true, and I saw that especially while being in this room.
I would suggest that everyone watch this film because I will definitely be watching it again. The documentary will be available to purchase and stream everywhere on August 20th for the first time! Click here to see where it will be available