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Ricardo D. Bates, writer and filmmaker
Reading Time 1 min 32 secs
By BWSTimes Staff
Ricardo D. Bates is a filmmaker and entrepreneur who currently resides in Houston, TX but isn’t an H-town native. A football scholarship brought him to the University of Houston after high school, but sports wasn’t his passion; it was just something that he was great at.
His life’s true love and the driver of his existence is creative writing and filmmaking.
It’s a career that he doesn’t believe would have been possible without the guidance of an impressionable mentor, Anthony Brock, a life-long educator who’s been in Bates’ life since he was a 5th-grader back in his hometown of Prattville, Ala.
Bates paid the kindness that Brock bestowed upon him forward by becoming a high school English teacher, a published author, writer, filmmaker, and mentor.
Courtesy of Valiant Cross Academy
In October of 2018, Brock and Bates published a book they co-authored entitled Fruit. Fruit is a moving and profound story about that highlights Valiant Cross Academy, an all-boys school that continues to transform boys into black men of excellence since its founding, and the school happens to be across the street from the historic Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church in Montgomery, Ala.
Bates first became motivated to write as a coping mechanism to deal with a traumatic experience he had as a child at age 10. It was an unfortunate moment where he became the witness of nearly losing his father. The encounter traumatized him to the point of muteness, but that moment, also, triggered an inner force, he had no idea he possessed — a love for the creative arts.
Bates began to write and did so vividly.
Today, at age 30, he is the producer of films about resilience and people overcoming adversity.
His next project is an independent film and passion project entitled “Sound of Glass.” The idea was birthed from his personal experiences as a young kid, who always sought after the approval from others, burying his own passions.
“Everyone has experienced some form of adversity that has contributed to the person that you are today. This film carries the message of “Pain does not define you,” and I’m truly excited to share this with the world.”
Bates’ independent project is about the human experience, and we’re sure it will be as transformative as Fruit and the positive work he does to improve the lives of youth.
The “Sound of Glass” needs $1,479 to reach the goal of $10,000. Support this passion film by clicking the link below.