Bay Area Premiere!

Between the starting tree and the gearshift is an eternity of little moments, some filled with the bulky growl of revving fuelies, others, the intense silence within the driver's stare. Using a style best described as theatrical documentary, Kevin Jerome Everson's punchy Cinnamon scopes Erin, a young African American woman, as she waits out the endless moments until the next quarter mile pits her reflexes against the clock, the track, and the uncertain mechanics of a pro-stock dragster. Her mentor John, the rare African American racing pro, reads the drag strip like a complex topo of shifting viscosities. Away from the track, Erin is a desk jockey, a loan officer held in a limbo of businesslike distraction. Behind the wheel of John's fuel-fed monster, she is pure focus, waiting for a surge of horsepower to propel her toward redline. Detailed like a precision machine, Cinnamon is a quiet film that roars.