Dear Friends,
I am proud to announce our First Annual East End Black Film Festival that will be taking place at the Parrish Art Museum in Southampton on November 4th.
It is being hosted by the African American Museum and Center for Excellence - currently a virutal museum with future planned site for building. Our mission is as follows: The African American Museum and Center for Excellence is an organization serving the North and South Fork communities, with a mission to promote an understanding and appreciation of African American culture.
The museum will house artifacts of African historical distinction, acquire and maintain local African historical structures and sites in the North and South Fork area, and lastly create programs to educate the public about the importance of the rich African American historical legacy.
Please view the program details below. Light refreshments will be served including ethnic food provided by Gloria's of the Hamptons. The cost for the entire day - $5.00.
This is an historic event and you don't want to miss it. We need your support and attendance at the festival to continue to have events of this nature in the Hamptons. Again, please show your face in the place. Should you need to discuss further, feel free to contact me on (631)287-1271.
Warmest Regards, Bonnie Cannon
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Bonnie Cannor is a Southampton Village Trustee
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FILM SCHEDULE & SYNOPSIS -
Films for Saturday November 4
Parrish Art Museum, Jobs Lane Southampton
1:30pm: Children’s Selection
The Journey of Henry Box Brown (Ages: 3 – 10)
Director – Karyn Parsons
The Journey of Henry Box Brown takes a magical look at the historic true tale of slave Henry Box Brown, a man who mailed himself in a wooden box from a plantation in Richmond, Virginia to freedom in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1848. Narrated by Emmy-winning and Oscar-nominated actress Alfre Woodard (Cross Creek) this animated story uses entertaining verse to share Henry's story.
2:00 pm: Family Selection
Kirikou and the Sorceress (African Folk Tale depicts some nudity)
Director – Michel Ocelot
Animated film recounts the tale of tiny Kirikou, born in an African village on which Karaba the Sorceress has placed a terrible curse. Kirikou sets out on a quest to free his village of the curse and find out the secret of why Karaba is so wicked. Kirikou depicts a precocious newborn infant who battles ignorance, and so-called evil, with endearing perseverance. This film speaks to the child within us all who years to express and defend the best in others and ourselves.
3:00 pm: Classic Selection
The Green Pastures
Director – Marc Connelly and William Keighley
"Gangway for de Lawd God Jehovah!" Despite racial stereotypes and a naive, backward vision of "Negro Heaven," The Green Pastures remains an important, controversial, and still-entertaining milestone in African American popular culture. Because this 1936 spiritual musical embraces all of the black stereotypes that were prevalent in its time, Warner Home Video has appropriately included a disclaimer regarding the political incorrectness of the film's then-common racial prejudices, stressing the importance of acknowledging these stereotypes as opposed to pretending they never existed. With this understanding, The Green Pastures still endures as a classic American folk drama, based on Marc Connelly's Pulitzer Prize-wining Broadway production in which several Old Testament stories are performed as they might be imagined by black Sunday-school child in the Depression-era South. As a relic of its time, it's a vivid (and for some, still uncomfortable) reminder that racial stereotypes--even in a joyful gospel context--can teach us a lot about where we've been, and where we've yet to go.
5:00 pm: Feature Presentations (Adult content, parental guidance for teens recommended)
The Constellation (2005)
Director/Producer – Jordan Walker-Pearlman
Constellation chronicles the lives and loves of an African-American family in the Deep South as they are forced to come to terms with a tumultuous past marked by an unrequited interracial affair. The film explores the way in which the family patriarch must confront his demons amidst the changing racial fabric of society and his own family.
When Does it Stop (short-film) – 7:00 pm
Director – Derek Koen, Producer – Ouida Washington
When Does It Stop peers into the murder of a young man, its impact on his family, and its perpetuation of the cycle of violence in the streets. The unending cycle of violence continues. The film asks the question “When Does It Stop”?
The Unseen (2005) – 7:30 pm
Director – Lisa France, Executive Producer – Luis Moro
Roy Clemons (Steve Harris of The Practice) returns to his rural hometown in Georgia (pop. 83) to face the deep-rooted racial tensions of a deep southern town that ages, but never changes. This is a spellbinding drama deep in the south, where friendship connections had been broken for over 20 years. The past comes to the present, laced with intolerance and misunderstandings and possible old wounds needing to be mended.
