Renjah Brimage keeps three tablets on her at all times, filled with all her creative ideas. One of her tablets stays in bed with her so that when God sends her a vision in her sleep, she can wake up and write it down, she says. One early January morning, Renjah was sleeping peacefully inside her Jackson home when her eyes fluttered open and she sat up in bed, an idea fresh in mind. She turned on the lamp resting on the end table, grabbed her tablet and wrote down two words: “Mississippi Roots.”
She stared at the text for a few moments, imagery from her dream flashing through her head. A cartoon. A talking tree. An elder. Children. These details didn’t make sense at that moment, but she knew it would once she played around with it. She trusts God, believing he hasn’t steered her wrong yet. With this vision tucked peacefully away in her tablet, she closed the device, turned off the lamp and resumed her sleep.
Over the next week, Brimage poured over the vision she received. It came to her as animation, but should it stay that way, she wondered? Should it be long or short form? What does the phrase “Mississippi Roots” mean? Eventually, her idea morphed into a live-action short film with the elder talking instead of the tree.
She finalized the script for “Mississippi Roots” by the end of January, and she began casting in early February. Soon afterward, rehearsals began for the film and finished around June, two months before filming started in August.
“I’m definitely my worst critic,” Brimage told the Mississippi Free Press. “What I do is go over it over and over and work out any kinks. As I got the cast and we started working on it, I could see then if any more changes needed to be done—because with film, you don’t know until you start rehearsing. Sometimes, you have to tweak things so that it can flow like it needs to, and that’s with any production.”
Because the film is short, filming took less than a day to complete, for which Brimage was grateful considering the scenes take place outside where the cast and crew had to deal with the August heat. The editors worked on the film for two weeks before Brimage saw the final product.
“This is my first film, so it was exciting to actually see my creativity come to life,” she said. “Once (God) gives (a vision) to me, everybody that needs to be in place is there. You don’t really have to look for it and things like that because he puts those people in place for that vision.”
“Mississippi Roots” is a short film that follows a Black woman elder who teaches children and other young people about the importance of community and taking care of one another. The setting of the film takes place near a tree in the elder’s front yard, though it holds a much deeper meaning to the film’s plot.
“There’s a tree in every state, and it represents us as people. If we nature ourselves and respect and love one another, then we would have love and unity all over the world because it starts from home,” Brimage explained.
This film is the first of many that Renjah is looking to create and produce under her company, Hustle Harder Entertainment company, which she started in 2018. Brimage arranged a film premiere and red carpet event for the short film at the National Guard Armory theater in Magee, Miss. on Oct. 12, 2024.
Community members, family friends, media, actors and actresses from the film arrived dressed in their best glamorous dresses and suits for the occasion. However, due to technical difficulties, the film could not be shown at the premiere, but viewers are now welcome to watch it online on her entertainment company’s website.
‘God Gave Me the Vision’
Born in Chicago, Ill., Renjah Brimage moved to Mendenhall, Miss., when she was 14 years old. She attended Simpson County schools in the Magee and Mendenhall areas, enjoying the smaller classroom settings and the southern hospitality. Brimage credits her mother with instilling the values she believes in and tries to uphold today, as she regularly “stayed on” her to ensure she made decisions they felt were right.
After graduating high school, Brimage attended Copiah-Lincoln Community College Simpson County Center and earned a certification in business administration entrepreneurship in 2015. She met someone from Jackson and moved to the capital city, where she founded Hustle Harder Entertainment in 2018.
“I started out seeing a lot of up-and-coming artists that didn’t have a lot of avenues. There weren’t a lot of open mics here. So, I started branding artists, helping artists and doing events, and from there, it grew,” she said.
The producer said she owes God for providing her with the creativity necessary to spawn and act on her ideas. In 2020, she published “Always Always Remember to Pray,” a children’s book she wrote in a week. Serendipitously, the person who illustrated the book fell into place at just the right time, to which Brimage gives God the credit. Brimage is now a program committee member for The Magnolia Independent Film Festival in Starkville, Miss., who reached out to her about the position.
As a newbie to the film industry, Renjah admitted that the role comes with its fair share of challenges, like having to recast for her next film production, “Endure,” because actors can have inconsistent availability or because the state’s weather can be intense, such as when she and others worked in hot temperatures in August to create “Mississippi Roots.” Funding can also be an issue, she said.
“You don’t get a lot of help, being an independent filmmaker. For me, once God gave me the vision, I just started saving and saving and being as creative as I could to work with other people in the community,” Brimage recalled. “It might be a videographer that’s coming up and they’ve done a couple of things, I’ll connect with them. That’s saving a little money, but also helping them get out there, too.”
Brimage is currently in the pre-production phase of her next film project, “Endure,” which will follow three people facing adversity while trying to achieve their goals and will show how they overcome those obstacles through persistence and faith.
“The message of that (film) is to stay consistent, stay dedicated. Put God first, and you can achieve all things through him,” the filmmaker said.
Years ago, Renjah Brimage would have never guessed she would enter the film industry. She never saw herself becoming a writer. She never saw herself hosting events or having her own production company. She simply listens for God’s messages and follows the missions she believes he has laid out for her, Brimage said.
“I just appreciate everybody that had hands in making the vision come to life. Hopefully I’ll connect with more people so that, if this is what he has for me, it can grow and help others because it’s not about me. It’s about helping other talent,” she said.
Watch “Mississippi Roots” online through Hustle Harder Entertainment’s website.
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