When Oakland filmmaker Joslyn Rose first toured the former Holy Names Campus University last fall, she had no sense of what possibilities the 70-year-old site might offer as a film location.
The veteran director, producer and writer has been in the filmmaking industry since 2003. She’s directed music videos for Bay Area hip-hop legends Too $hort and E-40; produced special programs for BET; and directed “Stand,” an Emmy-nominated Showtime documentary about basketball player and activist Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf. Rose, who has filmed various of her projects in Oakland, got to work on her most recent project, the short film “The Listeners,” at the Oakland Hills Campus for the first time. The short, which she directed, premiered last week at Mills College – Northeastern University as part of the Oakland International Film Festival.
“I was taking photos and I was just starting to brainstorm,” Rose said. “It was an exciting moment to find a place I could just shoot at. There’s a Division II basketball gym. There’s a hospital, a library with books in it. I was hyped.”…