‘Films About Africa’ often feels like much less of the fairly open ended descriptor that it ought to be, and much more like an advanced and stylized genre, complete with its own rules and conventions; this includes not simply the Blackhawk Downs and Kony 2012s and other easy targets, but even those pieces that take… Read more »
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When a Personalized & Non-Threatening Multi-Racial Heroic Narrative Pares Down the Complexity of Our Public School System and Venerates Free-Market Education Reform in the Name of Community Empowerment. Or Does it?
Won’t Back Down starring Viola Davis (The Help) and Maggie Gyllenhaal, tells the story of two public school parents (Viola Davis’ character is also a teacher) who are fed up with the performance of their school (set in Pittsburgh), and persevere through a series of obstacles to enact a little known state law that allows… Read more »
Sal & Hugh Masekela Play Muse for Father-Son Feature Film
Olympus Pictures has announced that a feature length, scripted project, inspired by Selema (Sal) and Hugh Masekela, is “in development”. The film will explore the relationship between Hugh (of Ladysmith Black Mambazo Fame) and Sal (of surfing and EXPN fame). More specifically, Hugh’s exile and return to South Africa (both because of/in opposition to apartheid),… Read more »
Ghanaian Film Posters on Display at Grunwald Gallery of Art
The Grunwald Gallery of Art at Indiana University will open “Axe of Vengeance: Ghanaian Film Posters and Film Viewing Culture” on August 24th. The exhibit will feature the large hand painted posters ubiquitous in Ghana in the 1980s and used for advertising public screenings of films played on VCRs. The exhibit will focus not only… Read more »
Paul Robeson, the Spanish Civil War, and the Oliver Law Film That Never Was
Paul Robeson, the consummate renaissance man, is known as well for his amazing talent (an athlete, polyglot, orator, intellectual, singer, actor) as for his political involvement and passion for social justice. His involvement in the Spanish Civil War[i] on the side of the Republican forces, though less well known, stands out as an episode that… Read more »
T-Rex Takes Gold
Claressa Shields – who we wrote about recently here in the context of a feature length documentary being made about her by Drea Cooper, Zackary Canepari, and Sue Johnson – has won the gold medal at the Olympics in the middleweight division, defeating Nadezda Torlopova of Russia and becoming the second youngest gold medalist in… Read more »
‘And We Are Many:’ Afro-Argentines and Defensa 1464
In 1810, a third of Buenos Aires was African. Still, the received, albeit simplistic, narrative – placing the Argentine expanse as a land of opportunity for Europe’s masses and Buenos Aires as the cosmopolitan center (a la Paris) – maintains the Argentine story as a narrative sans Africans, or, one in which Africans conveniently disappeared… Read more »
Children’s Programs for the Diaspora and Beyond
Young white boys who watch television feel better about themselves in the long run, according to a research study by Nicole Martins and Kristen Harrison. Young girls and young black boys tend to feel worse about themselves. While women, across a range of television programming, find success in sexualization of their bodies, “Young black boys… Read more »
Look Out for T-REX
Claressa Shields, at 17, will be the youngest woman boxer at the Olympics this year – a testament to her skill in the ring. And there’s currently a feature length documentary in the works about here – a testament to her radiant personality. Drea Cooper, Zackary Canepari, and Sue Johnson set out to make… Read more »
Imaging the Past with Educational Films
The Indiana University Libraries have recently posted 197 newly digitized films from their educational film collections. Among these are several films by and about African Americans, including 1985’s award-winning The Masters of Disaster, documenting the successes of a chess team of black sixth-graders; the 1976 musical drama In the Rapture, performed at the Church of… Read more »