September 26th
Book Signing and Opening
Reception for our 5th annual Black Panther Party Film
Festival
Thurs, Sept 26 6- 9pm MLK Jr
Labor Center 310 W 43rd St NY, NY 10036
Featuring:
Jamal Joseph, his book is called "Panther
Baby", Rosemari Mealy Author of "Fidel and
Malcolm
Alondra Nelson Author of "Body and Soul: The Black
Panther Party and the Fight Against Medical Discrimination"
Maroon the Implacable: The Collected Writings of Russell Maroon
Shoatz Maroon will be represented by his son Russell Shoatz III
Special Guest Ngoma:
He is a singer/songwriter and paradigm shifter, who
for over 40 years has used culture as a tool to raise socio-political
and spiritual consciousness through work that encourages critical
thought. Ngoma serves up a helping of smokin' spoken word with
jazz/funk/fusion with a slice or two of world beat. He weaves poetry
and song that raises contradictions and searches for a solution to a
just and peaceful
We invite you to help us celebrate our 5th year
Free admission open to public RSVP johnson.bill710@gmail.com
September 27th-28th
The 5th Annual Black Party Film
Festival
8.
WE WANT freedom for all black men held in federal, state, county and
city prisons and jails. Remembering our Political Prisoners
{Proceeds from our film festival, after expenses
is used to supply commissary for Political Prisoners.}
Friday,
September 27th, 7:00pm
Sweet
Sweetback's Baadasssss
Song
Melvin Van Peebles, 1971, 97 min.
After saving a Black Panther from some racist
cops, a black male sex worker goes on the run from "the
man" with the help of the community and some disillusioned Hells
Angels. Written, produced, and directed by, and starring Melvin Van
Peebles and independently financed, in part with a $50,000 loan from
Bill Cosby, Sweetback was initially
screened at two theaters in the U.S. and went on to gross 5 million
at the box office. Huey P. Newton welcomed the film's revolutionary
values and Sweetback became required
viewing for the Black Panther Party. It demonstrated to Hollywood
that films that portrayed "militant" black characters could
be highly profitable, leading to the creation of the Blaxploitation
genre, although most don't consider Sweetback an exploitation film.
Earth Wind & Fire, who did the score, were introduced to the
world by this film. This verite, narrative jem also introduced
fast-paced montages and jump-cuts to American audiences.
Post-screening panel discussion.
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Trailer
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Saturday, September 28th,
4:00pm
Justifiable Homicide
Jon Osman and Jonathan Stack,
2002, 85 min.
On Jan. 12, 1995, two young Puerto Rican residents
of the Bronx, Anthony Rosario and Hilton Vega, were shot to death by
detectives of the New York Police Department. The officers said they
were acting in self-defense, firing on two men in the act of committing
an armed robbery. A grand jury believed them, and no charges were
brought against them. The makers of Justifiable
Homicide suggest that the subsequent firings of the
director of the review board and the investigators assigned to the
Rosario-Vega case were a result of the Giuliani administration's
desire to make the case go away. Justifiable Homicide is an
exploration of the killings and their aftermath.
Post-screening panel
discussion with Margarita Rosario
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Trailer
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Saturday, September 28th,
7:00pm
The FBI's War on Black
America
Deb Ellis and Denis Mueller,
1991, 47 min.
The FBI's War on Black
America offers a thought provoking look at a
government-sanctioned conspiracy, the FBI's counter intelligence
program known as Cointelpro. This documentary establishes historical
perspective on the measures initiated by J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI
which aimed to discredit black political figures and forces of the
late 1960's and early 1970's. Combining declassified documents,
interviews, rare footage and exhaustive research, it investigates the
government's role in the assassinations of Malcolm X, Fred Hampton
and Martin Luther King Jr. The film reflects the rigorous research
which went into its making, and portrays the nation's unrest during
the period it recounts.
Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zc22gHi3BCY&feature=player_embedded
October 3rd-5th
The 5th Annual Black Party
Film Festival
8. WE WANT freedom for all
black men held in federal, state, county and city prisons and jails.
Remembering our Political Prisoners
{Proceeds from our film festival,
after expenses is used to supply commissary for Political Prisoners.}
Thursday, October 3rd, 7:00pm
Political Prisoners Short
(10 min.)
Yesterday Is Not Too Soon
(Interview with Assata Shakur)
Legal Services for Prisoners
with Children, 1997
Assata interviewed by
activist Dorsey Nunn.
Mama C. Urban Warrior in the
African Bush
Joanne Hershfield, 2012, 60
min.
The film explores Mama C's
decade's long project of coming to terms with who she is-an African
American raised in Kansas City, KS, the "jazz-capital of the
world," who has lived most of her life in Africa, the place from
where her ancestors were forced to make the
"middle-passage." When she first arrived in Tanzania she
tried as hard as she could to "fit in," wearing khangas,
carrying my babies on my back, basket on my head, chewing sugar cane
sticks." As she writes in one of her published poems, "In
my freshly-landed, just-got-off-the-boat enthusiasm of living in
Africa, I tried to blend, to melt, homogenize, disappear, erase, the
essence of what made me who I am, an African, who grew up in and was
molded by the 'hoods' of America, and I almost lost myself,
self."
Post-screening Q&A with
director Joanne Hershfield and Attorneys Jill Soffiyah Elijah &
Joan Gibbs
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Trailer
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Friday, October 4th, 7:00pm
Political Prisoners Short
(10 min)
Long
Distance Revolutionary: A Journey with Mumia Abu-Jamal Stephen Vittoria, 2013, 120
min.
Before
he was convicted of murdering a policeman in 1981 and sentenced to
die, Philadelphia Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal was a gifted
journalist and brilliant writer. Now after more than 30 years in
prison and despite attempts to silence him, Mumia is not only still alive
but continuing to report, educate, provoke and inspire. The film
features many supporters of Mumia, including actress Ruby Dee,
Cornell West, writer Tariq Ali, and author Michelle Alexander
("The New Jim Crow").
Post-screening Q&A with
director Stephen Vittoria.
Saturday,
October 5th, 4:00pm
Political Prisoners Short
(10 min)
In My Own Words
2011, 48 min.
Prison interview with the
long-jailed Ojore Lutalo. Ojore touches on many issues, from what
prisons are, to why he is in prison to the nature of the black
radical struggle. Ojore was released in 2009, only to be rearrested a
few months later as the alleged "Amtrak Terrorist" in
Colorado. All charges were dropped after no one was able to provide
any evidence of wrongdoing.
Post-screening panel
discussion with Ojore Lutalo & Bonnie Kerness
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Trailer
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Saturday, October 5th, 7:00pm
Hard Time
Ronald Harpelle, 2013, 40
min.
Hard Time is a film about Robert
Hillary King, the only one of the Angola 3 to have been released.
King was a political prisoner who spent 29 years in solitary
confinement in the infamous Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola.
The film focuses on racism and human rights in the U.S. penal system,
and draws attention to the plight of Herman Wallace and Albert
Woodfox, the other members of the Angola 3, who have been held in
solitary confinement for more than 40 years. Together they formed a
prison chapter of the Black Panther Party to fight for better
conditions, security for inmates and justice behind bars.
Herman's House
Angad Bhalla, 2012, 80 min.
Herman Wallace may be the
longest-serving prisoner in solitary confinement in the United
States-he's spent more than 40 years in a 6-by-9-foot cell in
Louisiana. Imprisoned in 1967 for a robbery he admits, he was
subsequently sentenced to life for a killing he vehemently denies. Herman's House is a moving account of the
remarkable expression his struggle found in an unusual project
proposed by artist Jackie Sumell. Imagining Wallace's "dream
home" began as a game and became an interrogation of justice and
punishment in America. The film takes us inside the duo's unlikely
12-year friendship, revealing the transformative power of art.
Followed by Closing Reception
and Party.
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Trailer
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Invited Director Melvin Van
Peoples
Featured Speakers: Directors
Margarita Rosario, Stephen Vittoria, & Joanne L. Hershifield.
Attorneys Jill Soffiyah Elijah & Joan Gibbs. Panthers Bullwhip,
Cleo Silvers, Pam Hanna, Cisco Torres, Shaba-Om, & Jamal Josephs.
Also King Downing, Shaka Shakur, Ojore Lutalo and Bonnie Kerness.
Produced by the Black Panther
Commemoration Committee, in conjunction with Maysles Cinema.
