The weed documentary American Pot Story: Oaksterdam will have its East Coast premiere at the Lighthouse International Film Festival.
It’s on Long Beach Island, NJ, on Saturday, June 10th, at 3:45 pm at LBI Foundation of the Arts on 120 Long Beach Blvd, Long Beach, NJ 08008.
Long Beach is a small beach town in Ocean County near Atlantic City that, like most of them, is anti-cannabis.
American Pot Story: Oaksterdam Details
American Pot Story: Oaksterdam tells the story of a handful of underdogs who made progress pushing Californian cannabis policy.
What began at the first-ever cannabis college in Oakland, California, Oaksterdam University, would arguably end up impacting the whole world. It reflects Northern California’s rich history of civil resistance.
Award-winning filmmakers (and married couple) Dan Katzir and Ravit Markus of New Love Films spent a decade following the group. That included Oaksterdam University Founder Richard Lee and Oaksterdam Executive Chancellor Dale Sky Jones.
“What I learned from following these amazing people for over a decade is that passion is still the secret ingredient of revolutions. Our film proves that citizens can bring about change,” Katzir argued.
Weed Documentary Highlights Cannabis Activists
After becoming paraplegic, Richard Lee discovered marijuana helped him deal with some of his conditions better than any medication. At that moment, he realized his life’s mission was to legalize cannabis. Dale Sky Jones was a woman with a heartbreaking past. She found her voice in the cannabis movement when she joined Oaksterdam University and quickly became one of the top leaders.
“It’s an ode to activists, no matter the cause,” said Markus.
Other notable personalities in the film are actor and Advocate Tommy Chong, California Governor Gavin Newsom (D), Congresswoman Barbara Lee of Oakland (D-CA), and Evan Nison of Nison Co, the New Jersey-based Cannabis PR firm.
Nison is a Jersey native from East Brunswick. He is on the national boards of NORML and Students for a Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP). Nison began as a student cannabis policy arena when he was 19. He took a year off of college to be a field director during California’s first attempt at an adult use cannabis referendum in 2010. Unfortunately, it failed.
Nison is speaking at the Heady Home Grow Forum on Saturday, June 24th, in Trenton, NJ at Hub 13.
The weed documentary was awarded the Slamdance Audience Award. It had its world premiere there in January 2023 in the Unstoppable category, which highlights people with disabilities.
The movie also received the Mayor’s Award at the Oakland International Film Festival and a Stoney Award for Best Pot Documentary from CelebStoner.com Magazine. It is an official selection for the Dances With Films Festival in Hollywood, California.
