Rosario Dawson on the documentary “Our Words Collide,” her love of poetry and her concerns about artificial intelligence

The executive producer of the poetic documentary “Our Words Collide” was a natural fit for Rosario Dawson.

Since moving to Los Angeles a few years ago, the actress and producer has been involved in the world of poetry. Dawson, 45, originally from New York, met actor Dante Bosco shortly after he arrived in the City of Angels. She soon became immersed in poetry when Bosco opened an inventive space for poets called the Poetry Salon.

“He started the Poetry Lounge in a big house first, and then at Fairfax High School,” he tells theGrio. “So this is a space that I have been in for many years.”

This early exposure to poetry led to Dawson’s involvement in the Freestyle Digital Media documentary “Our words collide“as executive producer. The film, directed by Jordan W. Barrow and Matt Edwards, “features the poets of Get Lit, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit that uses the art form to educate and empower young people,” based on a press release.

The documentary profiles five young poets, Tyris Winter, Cassady Lopez, Jason Alvarez, Virginia Villalta and Amar Turner, as they “travel through their senior 12 months of highschool, exploring the many challenges facing young people today – including identity, expression, transition into maturity and overcoming mental problems – through the unique prism of their poetry.”

Dawson could discover with the young poets’ journey and using art to specific their feelings. The actress often uses her artistic skills to deal with her own mental health journey. Dawson says he “understands how important our creativity is to our ingenuity and our mental and emotional health.”

“We are designers in our lives. (Artists) reflect the inner world to the outer world and that’s how we relate to each other. It’s so beautiful,” he shares.

Dawson is especially shocked by how schools across the country are the first to eliminate art from the curriculum. He hopes that “Our Words Collide,” which is now available on VOD, will show viewers how vital art really is.

“(Students) are involved in this program; they get to know each other, find their voice, find strength in their voice,” he explains. “They find immediacy in the individuality of their voices and they are friends. You are all in the same classroom or space, but look how completely different their expressions are. They find comfort in it and faith in it.”

“The mental health (of fighting) is through the roof,” Dawson adds. “What a wonderful way of saying it was to have all these young people stand in front of these cameras and be on this journey and the adventure of sharing it with the world. I have this opportunity… and how amazing it is.”

Dawson emphasizes that students’ love and passion for art is very vital in the age of artificial intelligence, when many industries are threatening to exchange creators with artificial intelligence, use their art to coach artificial intelligence systems, and/or reduce their role in the creative process. process.

“Human art is being used to educate AI or simply to bring it back to us,” Dawson says. “What does that mean? It’s creative art that suddenly gets taken out by this thing and replaces people. It’s a specific conversation point like, ‘Wait a minute… let me have a space where I can express myself politically with paintings and all this other stuff “.

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“Artificial intelligence appears to be a knowledge-based system,” he continues. “We actually need to challenge the way we have been educating ourselves in our societies for generations. This doesn’t make sense when there is an AI that can never be competed with in its knowledge base. So what does this really mean for the development of our society?”

Dawson hopes that “Our Words Collide,” which premiered at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival in April, will show how poetry and art are irreplaceable in our society. He shares that the producers, directors and five poets featured in the documentary combined “all these different skill sets and tools” to create a “brilliant film.”

“Every element of this piece was wonderful and perfect and necessary,” Dawson says. “It’s a great conversation starter and a great example of the need for young people to engage in creativity.”

Our Words Collide is obtainable to rent/own on all online, cable and satellite HD digital platforms worldwide, in addition to on DVD. The film is obtainable through Freestyle Digital Media, the film distribution arm of Allen Media Group, whose founder, president and CEO, Byron Allen, owns Grio.