Middle Ground: The Last Digital Frontier film

Help us bring to life our first feature film, Middle Ground adapted by Brian Asingia based on a novel hailed as the first “rebranding Africa” novel and is the winner of the 2007 “Best Fiction” Self/Independent Publishing (S’Indie) Award.  1st Goal: $10,000, 2nd Goal: $50,000, 3rd Goal: $100,000+ Your contribution is appreciated! SYNOPSIS: Janice McWright, the first African-American ambassador to Belgium dies mysteriously in a car crash in Belgium. At the funeral, her daughter Shayna, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter accustomed to a world of elitism and privilege, discovers that she is the adopted daughter of Janice. She was born in Congo-Kinshasa to an American Peace Corps worker and his illiterate Congolese mistress. Shayna puts on hold her engagement to Hilton, an Ivy League MBA on the fast track to senior management at a major bank, and heads to war-torn Congo to find her birth mother.She enlists the help of Amina, a half-Congolese, half-Caribbean pediatric psychotherapist practicing in New York and who was her nemesis when both were at Spelman College. In Kinshasa, Shayna learns from the local CIA operative that Janice’s death was no accident. Amina, meanwhile, falls in love with Crispin, a wealthy Congolese industrialist and diehard African nationalist caught up in a vicious international bid for a small Brazilian shipping line with the potential to overturn the global trade and transportation status quo. PUBLISHER COMENTARY: Set in New York and Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Middle Ground is a remarkably ambitious portrait of a different Africa. Within author Rosalind Kilkenny McLymont’s fast-paced narrative is a deft blending of not only Congolese politics, but also the social divides permeating African-American culture itself and powerful insights into human nature. Screenplay by Brian Asingia from DreamGalaxy Studios. A captivating set of Caribbean, African and African-American characters interact with each other in Middle Ground. By blending these figures with themes that reflect the increasingly multicultural and multi-ethnic nature of the Black community in the United States, Ms. Kilkenny McLymont expands both the thematic and geographic boundaries of the black novel. In fact, I believe that Ms. Kilkenny McLymont’s work heralds a new genre in black fiction—the Diasporan novel…” --Barry Beckham, The Beckham Publications Group, Inc. A FEW READER COMMENTS “…I believe your work will become a classic. I would humbly observe that M.G. is in my opinion quite a remarkable achievement and very impressive, with your broad knowledge of Zairian politics, history and culture, especially, the relationship between the sexes, Kinshasa, journalism, and of African American class and social divides and streams. I have never read such a rich portrait of Africa, or of a character such as Crispin Abeli, a proud, strong, successful black male lacking any semblance of minstrelsy, subservience or caricature that we often see in the US. I believe the book would make an excellent cable multi-part drama series. I don’t believe that a two-hour theatrical release would do M.G. justice. I believe that there is a tremendous market for the product as there is nothing on contemporary American TV which approaches it, especially for African American, Caribbean, and Africans in the US as well as Americans of European origin. Persons of African ancestry in the US are basically left with watching the Sopranos and Italian culture, and wishing that there was something similar for us…”  (Posted at amazon.com) — Gregory L. Reid, Esq., Partner, Reid, Rodriguez & Rouse, LLP; Chairman, Board of Directors, National Minority Business Council, Inc. “A winner! I love the way you were able to weave together a love story, a woman's search for her roots, international intrigue, a suspense thriller and your knowledge of trade and transportation. Quite a surprise ending! Middle Ground is both a thriller and a tearjerker.”         — William Armbruster, Editor, Shipping Digest “I really enjoyed the book. I stayed up for two nights into the wee hours since I just had to finish it. Great work! Fast paced, not boring in any part with a great blend of tragedy, humor, history, romance, espionage, politics, business and suspense! Way to go.” Felicia J. Persaud, founder, NewsAmericasNow, CaribPR Wire, and Hard Beat Communications.   I think this is a great book. It explores the life of women in the Congo and in the US and the strength and resilience that they have. Rather than trying to juxtapose the two cultures the book leaves you with a feeling that an individual can be both which is totally thinking out of the box using todays racial and ethnic constraints. While this book is a quick read it packs historical and cultural information inside the cover. So you will learn about the Congo and the US and their relationship while you are trying to figure out the mystery. I highly recommend this book.             —  C.  Kirk