Tonight, watch Martin Smith’s report from Haiti on the impact and aftermath of the devastating earthquake.
Check out the New York Times review:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/arts/television/30quake.html
We are thrilled to announce that Coming Home: The Dry Storm, about the struggle of local activists in the face of the demolition of nearly all public housing in New Orleans, has been awarded the Jury Prize for Best Film at the 2010 PATOIS New Orleans Human Rights Film Festival.
Coming Home was produced and directed by Michele Stephenson of the Rada Film Group. Executive producers are Catherine Albisa and Tiffany M. Gardner of the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative (NESRI) and Sam Jackson of Mayday New Orleans.
As news of the win came in, Coming Home Executive Producer Tiffany M. Gardner of NESRI reported from the UN Habitat World Urban Forum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil that the film is garnering much interest among international housing advocates.
For more information visit:
http://nesri.org
http://maydaynolahousing.org
http://unhabitat.org
Coming Home: The Dry Storm follows Sam Jackson, a longtime resident of public housing in New Orleans, as he and other activists oppose the city’s decision to demolish most of the public housing units in the city - even those buildings not damaged by Hurricane Katrina. Issues of race, class, displacement and redevelopment erupt in the shadows of the half-demolished housing projects and a YouTube video prompts a visit from a United Nations fact-finding mission on forced displacement as Mr. Jackson and his community fight for the human right to housing.
Produced and Directed by Michele Stephenson of the Rada Film Group and Executive Produced by the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative (NESRI) and Mayday New Orleans, Coming Home will be featured in the Seventh Annual Patois New Orleans Human Rights Film Festival. The festival runs from March 12 - 21st, 2010 at various venues throughout the city. For a complete schedule of films, click here.
Coming Home screening (part of “Fighting for Home: Housing Struggles Across the U.S.”)
WHEN: Sunday March 14th at 4:00pm
WHERE: Zeitgeist Multidisciplinary Arts Center, 1618 Oretha Castle Haley Blvd. New Orleans, LA
COST: $8 (Festival passes are available for $40)
Thanks to everyone who has expressed support for the people of Haiti as they deal with this disaster.
Here is an interactive wiki map where you can follow developments on the ground:
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/WikiProject_Haiti#2010_Earthquake_Response
And please consider donating to the relief effort:
http://www.standwithhaiti.org/haiti
Just when you thought the media might be ready to leave Tiger Woods and his rapidly dwindling bundles of endorsement cash alone on his houseboat or wherever…
By coincidence, the January issue of Vanity Fair features “never before seen” photos of Tiger Woods taken by Annie Leibovitz, including a cover shot that features the superstar golfer wearing only a skullcap, half-heartedly lifting barbells and looking like he might cry.
There’s no interview. Just photos of the man the collective U.S. pop culture has been discussing, mocking and berating since last year. But a large part of Tiger Woods’ allure has been his image (heck, he had many fans that couldn’t sit though golf) - clean cut, handsome, exuberant, African-American, Asian, er, “Caublasian,” we knew him when we saw him.
Racewire.org points out Leibovitz’ touchy background photographing Black male athletes. Remember LeBron James and Giselle Bundchen, and their much-debated American culturally significant pose that ellicited so many visceral reactions?
In this new photo of Woods, his trademark confident smile is nowhere to be found. This is not the smiling, red polo-shirted fist-pumping champ. This guy pumps iron, nude, when he feels like it. Right now, this sad, sullen photo is the definitive image of the golfer - it matches his new position at the bottom of the adoration heap. How did Leibovitz know? Maybe with time it will prove easier to just Photoshop the proprietary Nike swoosh off of a decade of black baseball caps (now that that lucrative relationship is over) and we can keep our cheesing wunderkind.
Yet another lesson on the power of images for an image-driven culture.
DocWatchers will be screening Coming Home: The Dry Storm as part of an evening of three short films.
Coming Home: The Dry Storm. Directed by Michele Stephenson and produced in association with the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative (NESRI), Coming Home tells the story of Sam Jackson, a 52 year old resident of housing projects in the New Orleans and a survivor of Hurricane Katrina. The film explores how, after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, this somewhat reclusive quiet man becomes a passionate advocate for his community, reaching out to people in his neighborhood, as well as around the nation and the world to support the struggle for the right of his community to move back to their rightful homes.
When: Monday Jan. 11, 2010. 7pm
Where: Maysles Cinema, 343 Lenox Avenue (between 127th & 128th Streets)
Donations are requested.
Also screening:
Battle for the Hearts and Minds, dir. Shani Peters
Battle for the Hearts and Minds depicts a battle of words between historical black legends W.E.B. DuBois and Marcus Garvey. Relating elements of their documented 1920’s era conflict to later century hip-hop and hip-hop beef, the ongoing ‘fight” for social justice, and black disunity in general, the ‘event’ is present as a cross between a title fight and a rap battle.
No Ward dir. Terence Nance
No Ward is a short documentary about the forced migration
of New Orleans residents to cities in Texas. The film
juxtaposes the migrations that occurred as a result of
Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and Hurricane Gustave in 2008
Hope to see you there! For more information on this and other upcoming DocWatchers events, visit DocWatchers.com
As the U.S.-wide educational achievement gap persists for African American boys – as compared with their white counterparts; even factoring in socioeconomic status – we’re brainstorming about how new developments in social media can be part of the solution.
What exactly is the “social media revolution” anyway? This video from the recent Third Annual Media Convergence Forum offers some statistics to blow your mind a little on the changing nature of media:
A question we’re asking ourselves is how to get lower income and lower middle-income African American and Latino families to “buy into” high-tech strategies to help their child succeed and feel confident and positive about education?
Is there an “app” for that?
These topics and more will be explored at the Harvard University Achievement Gap Initiative’s Parent Leadership Network’s January 2010 conference. The conference will discuss the role of new media in closing the achievement gap. The Rada Film Group has been invited to present our work in progress documentary An American Promise as the keynote presentation to a group of parents, educators, administrators, scholars, researchers and policymakers.
We’ll be keeping you posted.
Here’s an insightful article by Juell Stewart from Colorlines on the successes and pitfalls present in the new movie Precious, directed by Lee Daniels:
We received this email about this wonderful upcoming event in L.A., in honor of legendary filmmaker St. Clair Bourne, a dear friend:
To continue the mission of the late founder of the Black Association of Documentary Filmmakers West, St. Clair Bourne, BAD West would like to present “St. Clair Bourne’s 3rd Thursday Documentary Film Screening Series”.
St. Clair Bourne’s 3rd Thursday Documentary Film Series is a monthly gathering for artists actively working in film, television and theater to stimulate discussion on culture, political principles, creative techniques and the exchange of ideas that can help us all make the most powerful work possible to help create a culture of resistance in these important times.
On Thursday, November 19th, at 7:00 pm, BAD West will screen STILL BILL, an intimate portrait of soul legend Bill Withers to kick off the monthly documentary series at Vegan Village Cafe, located at 4067 W Pico Blvd., Los Angeles, CA. Vegan Village, a pillar in the community, shares our vision through promoting health and culture.
The 3rd Thursdays documentary screenings are free, but we strongly encourage attendees to support Vegan Village by trying their menu of healthy food and beverages. Parking is free in the rear of the building.
STILL BILL is an intimate portrait of soul legend Bill Withers, best known for his classics “Ain’t No Sunshine,” “Lean On Me,” “Lovely Day,” “Grandma’s Hands,” and “Just the Two of Us.” With his soulful delivery and warm, heartfelt sincerity, Withers has written the songs that have – and always will – resonate deeply within the fabric of our times.
Filmmakers Damani Baker and Alex Vlack follow Withers and offer a unique and rare look inside the world of this fascinating man. Through concert footage, journeys to his birthplace, interviews with music legends, his family and closest friends, STILL BILL presents the story of an artist who has written some of the most beloved songs in our time, and who truly understands the heart and soul of a man.
The Rada Film Group caught up with some of the female producers of the WGBH series LATIN MUSIC USA to talk about their experiences creating the episodes.
Today, Pamela A. Aguilar, co-producer of Episode One: Bridges and Episode Two: The Salsa Revolution, takes us behind the scenes and fills us in on the challenges of U.S.-side Latin music research, the enduring appeal of Santana and Graciela Perez-Grillo, the “First Lady of Latin Jazz.”
Rada: What surprised you the most about the music history you were exploring that you didn’t know or had other assumptions about going into the project?
Pamela Aguilar: I was most surprised about the lack of scholarship done in the U.S. on the subject –from Afro-Cuban Jazz to the Mambo, the Boogalu and Salsa, etc. – it was a difficult task to get a grasp on the rich history and really get down below the surface. Countless books and essays do not exist in the states. We did, of course, source Spanish books and writings on the topic but it was surprising that there was so little material readily available for research in the United States.
Rada: It seems like an entire series could be done just on the first episode of Latin Music USA. What elements were the most difficult to leave out of the film that you think would have been relevant to the Latino community?
Pamela Aguilar: Ha! How much time do you have? There are several elements in the history of Latin Music made in the U.S. that were left out of the final episode. Key figures that for many Latinos are household names were cut from the final film for many reasons, mainly not enough time.
However, deciding on a starting point was the most difficult. From the beginning we knew we only had an hour to cover nearly half a century of music –really about 54 minutes– and it was a struggle to figure out what point in time to start the film. Early on, we had the idea to bookend the film with Woodstock and Carlos Santana. Not only because he is an amazing Latino Superstar who introduced Afro-Caribbean percussion to what is referred to as mainstream America, but because as a filmmaker, in thinking about the final product we knew Woodstock would grab a wide audience and hook them into watching a historical film in which most of the talent is deceased. After all, we must not only educate, but also entertain. The direct story link to Carlos Santana became Mario Bauza.
In making that tough decision, we left out at least two decades of a vibrant and significant Latino music industry that had developed (and was growing) in ‘El Barrio’ / East Harlem some twenty years before our first character, Mario Bauza arrived in New York. It was that established industry made up of mostly Puerto Ricans that welcomed and embraced Bauza in the beginning. This part of the story is very relevant to the Latino community and the overall history of music New York City and it deserves to be thoroughly covered.
Rada: As a female producer, what is your take on gender dynamics present in the Latin culture and music you profiled and how did that reflect in your experience creating this episode?
Pamela Aguilar: As a woman, the gender dynamics present in the Latin culture and music profiled in Episode One did not come as a surprise –it [the industry] was mostly a man’s world and there is no denying it.
It was then, a wonderful surprise to learn that the “First Lady of Latin Jazz,” Graciela Perez-Grillo, Machito’s sister, of Machito and the Afro-Cubans, who is in her nineties was living in New York City as clear and vibrant as ever! I made it a mission to get an interview with Graciela, knowing that she played a pivotal role in the band as a featured vocalist and was a well-known artist in her own right from her days back in the early 1930s in Cuba, singing in the all-girl band Anacaona.
In my opinion, her presence in the film would have made a tremendous impact and it would have highlighted the talent of a living legend. Regretfully, after countless attempts to schedule an interview with her, it was not to be.
She then became one more name that would be left for a most needed follow up series to highlight not only other female talent but the amazing artists that we were not able to include in this episode.