African Diaspora Internatioal Film Festival Black Leaders Film Series: From Garvey To Sankara

sankara

Thomas Sankara

BLACK LEADERS FILM SERIES – April 25-27 At Teachers College, Columbia University

TO PURCHASE TICKETS ONLINE CLICK HERE.

Friday, April 25, 2014

6:30pm Marcus Garvey

MARCUS GARVEY: LOOK FOR ME IN THE WHIRLWIND, the first comprehensive documentary to tell the life story of this controversial leader, uses a wealth of material from the Garvey movement-written documents, film and photographs-to reveal what motivated a poor Jamaican to set up an international organization for the African diaspora, what led to his early successes, and why he died lonely and forgotten. Among the most powerful sequences in the film are articulate, fiery interviews with the men and women whose parents joined the Garvey movement more than 90 years ago. Together they reveal how revolutionary Garvey’s ideas were to a new generation of African Americans, West Indians and Africans and how he invested hundreds of thousands of black men and women with a new-found sense of racial pride.

(2000, 90min, USA, Stanley Nelson, Dir.)

Free Screening!

Saturday, April 26, 2014

2pm Wangari Maathai

TAKING ROOT is a compelling documentary narrative about the first environmentalist and first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1977, Maathai suggested rural women plant trees to address problems stemming from a degraded environment. Under her leadership, their tree-planting grew into a nationwide movement to safeguard the environment, defend human rights and promote democracy, and brought Maathai the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004.

(2008, 80min, USA, Alan Dater & Lisa Merton, Dirs.)

4:00pm Paul Bogle & Thomas Sankara

CATCH A FIRE tells the story of Deacon Paul Bogle, often described as a 19th century Malcom X. 30 years after the end of slavery in Jamaica, the Morant Bay Rebellion of 1865 provoked outrage in Victorian Britain shaping race and land attitudes. The story is constructed using extensive interviews with Paul Bogle’s grand son as well as archive material.

(1995, 30min, Jamaica/UK, Menelik Shabazz, Dir.)

CAPTAIN THOMAS SANKARA was the leader of the Burkinabe Revolution. In the former Upper Volta known today as Burkina Faso, a group of men decided to launch a revolution that would enable the country “to accept the responsibility of its reality and its destiny with human dignity.” Thomas Sankara belongs to the group of African leaders who wanted to give the continent in general and their countries in particular a new socio-political dimension.

(1991, 26min, Democratic Republic of Congo, Balufu Bakupa Kanyinda, Dir.)

5:30pm Amilcar Cabral and Frantz Fanon

Portrait of two leaders of the Pan-African Liberation Movement: Frantz Fanon and Amilcar Cabral.

Using rare archival footage, AMILCAR CABRAL accurately chronicles both the personal and public sides of an African icon in Amilcar Cabral. The founder of the African Party for Independence of Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde (PAIGC), Amilcar Cabral led the Liberation Movement against Portugal for those countries.

(Cape Verde/ Portugal, 2001, 52 mins., Ana Lucia Ramos Lisboa, Dir.)

In the documentary FRANTZ FANON: HIS LIFE, HIS STRUGGLE, HIS WORK uncovers and interviews scores of former associates of Frantz Fanon, a psychiatrist, philosopher and political leader. He became a spokesman for the Algerian revolution against French colonialism, and as the author of Black Skin, White Masks, Fanon documented the effects of colonialism and racism on the people of colonized countries.

(Algeria/France, 2001, 52 mins., in French and Arabic with English subtitles, Cheikh Djemai, Dir.)

Sunday, April 27, 2014

1pm Patrice Lumumba

LUMUMBA: DEATH OF A PROPHET offers a unique opportunity to reconsider the life and legacy of one of the legendary figures of modern African history. Like Malcolm X, Patrice Lumumba is remembered less for his lasting achievements than as an enduring symbol of the struggle for self-determination. This deeply personal reflection by acclaimed fimmaker Raoul Peck on the events of Lumumba’s brief twelve month rise and fall is a moving memorial to a man described as a giant, a prophet, a devil, “a mystic of freedom,” and “the Elvis Presley of African politics.

(France/Germany/Switzerland, 1992, 69mins, Raoul Peck, dir.)

2:40pm Alex Haley

This inspiring ALEX HALEY portrait recounts the transformation of a college dropout into one of America’s most powerful writers. In one of the few in-depth conversations filmed before his death in 1992, Alex Haley describes the dynamic collaboration that produced The Autobiography of Malcolm X and the quest for identity that yielded Roots.

(USA/Switzerland, 1992, 50 mins, Matteo Bellinelli, dir)

4pm Audre Lorde – the Berlin Years 1984 to 1992

AUDRE LORDE – THE BERLIN YEARS 1984 to 1992 documents Audre Lorde’s influence on the German political and cultural scene during a decade of profound social change, a decade that brought about the fall of the Berlin Wall and the re-unification of East and West Germany. This chronicles an untold chapter of Lorde’s life: her empowerment of Afro-German women, as she challenged white women to acknowledge the significance of their white privilege and to deal with difference in constructive ways.

(USA/Switzerland, 1992, 50 mins, Matteo Bellinelli, dir.)

 

WHERE: Teachers College, Columbia University – 263 Macy

525 West 120th Street, NY NY 10027

PLEASE NOTE: PHOTO ID required to enter the building. Free parking on Saturday and Sunday

TICKET PRICE: Friday, April 25: FREE

Saturday, April 26 and Sunday, April 27: $10 regular price; $8 seniors and students

WEEKEND PASS: $35

TO PURCHASE TICKETS ONLINE CLICK HERE.

 

Our mailing address is: African Diaspora Film Festival

535 Cathedral Parkway- St14B, New York, Ny 10025

 

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