A romance is played in reverse, revealed through memories brought on by improvisational music.

Director Biography

Shiloh Tumo Washington is a 23 year-old filmmaker from Chicago, Illinois. He is also an aspiring writer if both fiction and nonfiction. In High School, he began to experiment with many storytelling techniques during his Television Production classes.

Having since had his short films showcased at festivals such as the Black Harvest Film Festival, his work has been described as a movement in "poetic-realism." Having graduated from Columbia College Chicago with degrees in both Filmmaking and Creative Writing, he creates to find out about himself; to come to terms with history both personal and global. His most recent film, 'One For My Baby' is a step towards the more complex narratives he dreams of: Those concerned with the implications of black life and love. For him, cinema should reflect life itself.

Director Statement

One For My Baby is both a reconstruction of the events that brought me into this world and a eulogy for one of the people responsible: my father, Dale Conroy Washington. It is an attempt to talk about love's true form and how this form changes and shifts with time and to unmask the harmful force that masculinity has proven to be in face of it. The greatest privilage was to be able to revisit many childhood places throughout Chicago's South and East sides which many residents will know, with Lake Michigan being something of a supporting character.

This film, which was the culmination of my four years of undergraduate studies in Columbia College Chicago's Filmmaking program, serves as my first contribution to the romance genre. Utilizing many of the influences I picked up along the way in the great filmmakers and writers from just about everywhere, we behind One For My Baby have made the most honest attempt at depicting events from my own life. I looked at a great deal of work from the 'L.A. Rebellion' filmakers like Charles Burnett and Larry Clarke; and also cats like Bergman and Cassavetes. I believe that the tool of cinema should be harnessed to reflect and redefine life as lived--this is also quite a cost-effective approach, I should add.

I wanted to make a film for the sake of healing and honesty. This is maybe a portrait of my father, the person, not the artist as many people solely imagined; and in doing this, I hope the condition of the artist is somewhat further explored.

'One For My Baby' has everything to do with being black. It has everything to do with being both a parent and a child; how much do our journies cost us, and how avoidable are our mistakes? I am hoping that the romance at this film's core, not its fate, is what stays with viewers the most.

For this black boy with big, cinematic dreams: this is a historic piece. I dedicate it more specifically to the single mothers who raised us.

-Shiloh Tumo Washington, Writer and Director