“In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans has been rebounding slowly. Five years after the disaster, researchers suggest that the city promote its entertainment industry as a development strategy.”
Miller-McCune 08/24/10
Monthly Archives: August 2010
International Black Film Festival of Nashville, September 29th-October 3rd, 2010
Nashville, Tennessee may be known more for its music scene, but you can certainly get a film fix as well at the International Black Film Festival of Nashville.
The IBFF of Nashville strives to insure culturally accurate depictions in film with special emphasis on providing a forum for unheard, unseen and unknown viewpoints, and to showcase the rich creativity and diversity found in communities of color locally, nationally and internationally.
And if you’d like to spend a few weeks in Nashville, you can come early and take part in the African Street Festival from September 17th to the 19th, held at the Tennessee State University campus in celebration of African culture through singing, food and poetry.
African Diaspora Summer Film Series: August 20th-29th
5th Annual ADFF Summer Film Series – Films by and about Women August 20th-29th
The African Diaspora Summer Film Series is celebrating its 5th anniversary at The Riverside Theater this year and it is quickly becoming an important event among the ones under the African Diaspora Film Festival umbrella in New York City.
The Riverside Theater 91 Claremont Ave., between 120th & 122nd Streets (Morningside Heights) August 20th – 29th NYWIFT members and their guests pay the discounted rate for tickets as follows:
Opening And Closing Film: $13.00
General Admission to all other films: $8.00 (this discount applies for the entire festival)
Tickets can be purchased online at www.theriversidetheatre.org, by phone at 212.870.6784, or in person at the Theater box office (Thursday-Saturday 4:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.; Sunday, noon – 4:00 p.m.).
Held the two last weekends of the month of August, the Series has this year several films directed by women that are powerful, thought provoking and touching, and which present very revealing issues in many ways. The following is the list of films:
OPENING NIGHT FILM – August 20th NY PREMIERE Happy Sad (2008/Trinidad & Tobago/105mins.)
Dir: Dianah Wynter
After her mother is sent to prison, profound changes occur in the lives of several people when 17-year-old Mandy Graham goes to live with her father’s dysfunctional family who she never knew. Soon passions are unleashed, laying bare souls and revealing long hidden secrets. A feature film made entirely in Trinidad with local cast and crew, Happy Sad is an absorbing family drama that follows seamlessly the daily life of several members of a middle class family in Trinidad & Tobago. The title Happy Sad, which refers to the various events that happen in the film, is a reflection of life itself; some events hare happy and some are sad. One can easily identify with the struggles, insecurities, and successes of the various characters in the story, as the issues presented are human issues that we all face everyday. It is a beautiful film that will remind people of home.
The film was directed by Dianah Wynter who directed several TV episodes of Soul Food as well as Daddy’s Girl — ABC daytime special with Elise Neal and featuring singer Lauryn Hill — that won the Artios Award for Best Ensemble cast from the Casting Society of America, as well as an Emmy nomination for Best Director. To make Happy Sad, she worked with Trinidadian screenwriter and producer Horace Wilson, American veteran actor Bill Cobbs, and a group of up-and- coming Caribbean talent including 22-year-old model and actress Angel Ross in her breakthrough leading role on this feature film. Q&A with director and lead actress after the screening.
Cape Verde My Love (2007/Cape Verde/77mins.) Dir. Ana Ramos Lisboa Praïa, Cape verde. Laura, Flavia and Bela are childhood friends. Each leads her own life and they sometimes meet to dance, dine and have fun. But one day the calm rivers of their lives break their banks and become wild torrents: Ricardo, Flavia’s husband, rapes his pupil Indira, Laura’s 13-year old eldest daughter. A film that takes a critical look at the lives of women in Cape Verde. In Portuguese with English subtitles
The Wedding Song (2009/Tunisia/100mins)
Dir. Karin Albou Tunis, 1942.
Nour and Myriam, 16, have been friends since childhood. They share the same house in a modest neighborhood where Jews and Muslims live in harmony. Each one secretly desires the other girl’s life: while Nour regrets that she doesn’t go to school like her friend, Myriam dreams of love. She is envious of Nour’s engagement to her cousin Khaled, a sort of fantasy of the charming Arabian prince that they both share. Unfortunately, Khaled cannot find work. The engagement lingers and the prospect of a carnal union grows more distant. In November 1942, the German army enters Tunis. Pursuing the policies of the Vichy regime, the Nazis impose a heavy fine on the Jewish community. Tita, Myriam’s mother, no longer has the right to work. Crippled with debts, she decides to marry her daughter to a rich doctor, and Myriam sees her dreams of love suddenly fade away.
In Arabic and French with English subtitles.
Sara Gomez: an Afro-Cuban Filmmaker (2005/Cuba/Switzerland/76mins.)
Dir. Alessandra Muller
A rich, multilayered documentary about Afro-Cuban director Sarah Gomez. Born in 1943, she studied literature, piano, and Afro-Cuban ethnography before becoming the first female Cuban filmmaker. A woman of great intelligence, independence and generosity, she was a revolutionary filmmaker with intersecting concerns about the Afro-Cuban community and the value of its cultural traditions, women’s issues, and the treatment of the marginalized sectors of society. Through archival footage of her works and interviews with her children and husband Germinal Hernandez, cast members of her best-known film De cierta manera as well as colleagues and friends, we get closer to a filmmaker who invented new landscapes and brought together opposite worlds.
In Spanish with English subtitles.
Hearing Radmilla (2010/USA/82 mins.)
Dir. Angela Webb
The portrait of singer Radmilla Cody who was crowned the first Black Miss Navajo Nation in1997-1998. The film follows Radmilla through her controversial reign, the development of her musical career and the realities of falling in love with an abusive man. The serious legal consequences of her choices including some time spent in prison made her grew stronger spiritually. Ms. Cody is using her voice to be a spokesperson and role model for youngsters that she encounters on her journey.
World Premiere
Greening the Revolution (2010/USA/90mins.)
Dir. Katie Curran
This powerful documentary investigates today’s globalized, profit-centered food system — while agribusiness reaps record wealth, starving protesters cry for affordable food and peasants choose between land and death. But this feature documentary goes further, providing proof that farmers and workers are organized and fighting back, while implementing their own sustainable alternatives. Filmmaker Katie Curran traveled through Mexico, Cuba, India, Kenya, Zambia, Brazil, Haiti and the United States to capture intimate footage of food crisis and justice, with interviews from farmers, workers and activists, government and corporate officials, and intellectuals such as Howard Zinn, Vandana Shiva and Noam Chomsky.
CLOSING EVENT – Screening and Music Performance 8/27 NY Premiere La Colombiana (Passing the Torch) (2009/ Colombia-United Kingdom /58mins)
Dir. Jake Holmes
This is the story of the legendary Afro-Colombian singer, Totó La Momposina. The film exemplifies the living tradition of Afro-Colombian music. Having carefully studied and performed her native song and dance for several decades, La Momposina mastered its rhythmic variations so well that she was invited to perform at the Nobel Prize ceremony for Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez. An intimate portrait, the film follows the singer as she struggles to keep her culture alive through her children and grandchildren who travel with her to Colombia’s Caribbean coast.
Screening followed with musical performance by film host and co-producer Amanda Homi. Over the years Amanda who was born in London has written Reggae songs in Jamaica, studied Sabar drumming and dance in Senegal, played Brazilian percussion in Bahia, and sung with Gypsy Flamenco artists in Spain. Her songs are inspired by her global adventures. She performs with her multi-talented band, singing in several languages, playing percussion and dancing. Amanda’s live performance reflects her passion for the musical cultures and rhythms that touch her heart. From the moment they hit the stage you will be drawn into their colorful world. Her songs are true to their international sources, and at the same time offer the best of great pop music – irresistible hooks, infectious rhythms, and slice-of-life stories that inspire listeners to sing and dance along. She is currently in production for a music/travel series she is hosting entitled Amanda’s World Beat. Through music and dance she shows how easily we can make friends and get to the heart of unfamiliar cultures. In each episode, she chooses a respected local female singing artist to be her guide. Amanda’s secret ambition is to sing a duet with each one of them at the end of the show.
Journal of African Cinemas: Volume 2 Number 1
Journal of African Cinemas
Volume 2 Number 1
Aims and Scope
The Journal of African Cinemas will explore the interactions of visual and verbal narratives in African film. It recognizes the shifting paradigms that have defined and continue to define African Cinemas. Identity and perception are interrogated in relation to their positions within diverse African film languages. The editors are seeking papers that expound on the identity or identities of Africa and its peoples represented in film. The aim is to create a forum for debate that will promote inter-disciplinarity between cinema and other visual and rhetorical forms of representation.
Editors:
Prof Keyan G Tomaselli
Culture Communication and Media Studies, University of KwaZulu-Natal
Email: tomasell@ukzn.ac.za
Martin Mhando
Centre for Research in Culture and Communication.
Murdoch University
Email: m.mhando@murdoch.edu.au
David Nothling
Editorial Coordinator
Email: Africancinemas@gmail.com
Submissions should be sent to all the above addresses,
Contents:
Articles:
3-25 Creative/Cultural industries financing in Africa: A Tanzanian film value chain study.
MARTIN R MHANDO AND LAURIAN KIPEJA
27-35 Against amnesia: representations of memory in Algerian cinema.
GUY AUSTIN
37-48 Visions of female emancipation: three recent films from West Africa.
LIZELLE BISSCHOFF
49-63 The Rwandan genocide and the bestiality of representation in 100 Days (2001) and Shooting Dogs (2005)
PIOTR A. CIEPLAK
Reviews:
65-75 The Devil you Dance with: Film Culture in the New South Africa, Audrey Thomas McCluskey (2009), First Edition.
76-85 From the Kalahari to Bruce Lee: The Gods Must Be Crazy I & II, The Hong Kong Sequels and the Globalization of the Bushman.
Please find our Email Disclaimer here–>: http://www.ukzn.ac.za/disclaimer
International Black Film Festival: Sept 22 – Oct 3, 2010
The Fabienne Colas Foundation, which created the Montreal International Black Film Festival (formerly known as the Montreal Haitian Film Festival), the event Haïti en Folie and the Quebec Film Festival in Haiti, is pleased and proud to announce the 6th Montreal International Black Film Festival, slated to run from September 22 to October 3, 2010.
Featuring films from various countries such as Haiti, Canada, United States, France, Italy, England, Cuba, Switzerland, Brazil, the Montreal International Black Film Festival promotes a different kind of cinema, cinema that hails from here or from abroad and that does not necessarily have the opportunity to grace the big screen.
Who the hell is Juliette? / ¿Quién diablos es Juliette?
¿Quién diablos es Juliette?, directed by Carlos Marcovich will be screened Tuesday, August 24th at 7pm at the Monroe County Public Library Auditorium.
Director Carlos Marcovich met Mexican model Fabiola Quiroz during the shooting of a music video in Cuba where he selected Yuliet Ortega to play her younger sister. Both Quiroz and Ortega have been abandoned by their fathers and are deeply scarred by what has happened. After shooting the music video, Marcovich filmed the two women over a period of three years and created the film, Who the Hell is Juliette?
Marcovich arranges a reunion between Juliette (Yuliet) and her father. Fabiola sets up an interview for her to be a model… with interesting results.
The film is considered to be a very creative “low budget” film by some and “quirky” by others. It has been labeled as a docudrama as well as a “mockumentary”. Come make your own interpretation.
Free admission.
Fundraiser aims to save “Style Wars” film
Fundraiser aims to save “Style Wars” film, a 1984 graffiti doc on PBS
The Brooklyn Academy of Music is hosting a Sept. 9 restoration fundraiser for a historic graffiti/hip-hop documentary that aired on PBS in 1984. “Style Wars” is widely regarded as the first doc to focus on the cultural genres. “Nearly 25 years since it first stunned viewers, the film’s negative stock is beginning to decay,” reports the HipHopDX website. The event will feature three screenings of the film, a question and answer session with filmmaker Henry Chalfant, a catered reception and — of course — hip-hop beats courtesy of DJ Kay Slay on the turntables.
More about the restoration project here, tickets for the fundraiser here.
Protests Over UK Plans To Close Film Office (And Its Funding)
“The timing of the announcement was jarring to many because it came shortly after the council’s chief executive, John Woodward, had publicly touted the health and growth of the British film industry.”
Los Angeles Times 08/12/10
In Memorium: Abbey Lincoln
Abbey Lincoln, jazz vocalist, actress and civil rights activist, passed away Saturday, August 14, 2010. She was 80 years old.
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- Abbey Lincoln in 1959. Photograph: Paul Hoeffler/Redferns
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- Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times
The Black Film Center/Archive hosted a program in March 2010 which honored the film Nothing But a Man. Abbey Lincoln played the leading female role, Josie, in this film.
The BFC/A extend our condolences to her family, friends and fans.
To read more about Abbey Lincoln, please read her obituary:
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