The Black Arts Alliance will present the North Carolina Black Film Festival, formerly Cine Noir, March 24-27, 2011 in Wilmington, NC. In its 10th year, the four day juried and invitational festival of independent motion pictures by African-American filmmakers will showcase features, shorts, animation, and documentary films.
For more information: 910-431-9934
The Afrika Filmfestival in Leuven is the most important annual showcase for African films in the Benelux. The festival tries to promote African cinema supporting distribution and national release of features, (co-)organizing conferences, publishing books on African cinema and consulting other festivals and institutions. And… obviously screening African films…
The main aims of its politics and programming can be summarized as follows:
1) To provide an alternative for filmmakers and producers to have screening opportunities which mainstream distribution does not grant them, and thus generating some income for them that, in turn, provides them with the opportunities and means to continue filming and producing.
2) To create a stage in which films by Africans and African culture can be visible and present in Benelux media on a permanent basis.
CBR News has learned that comic writer, animation producer and respected industry veteran Dwayne McDuffie passed away. The cause of death and specific details are unknown at this time.
A native of Detroit, McDuffie officially joined the comics industry as part of Marvel Comics editorial in the late ’80s. While working on special projects for the publisher, he quickly made his name as a writer creating series such as “Damage Control” and helping to redefine the Deathlok character to fan and critical acclaim. He soon left the staff to become a full time freelance writer, becoming a voice in the industry for diversity, particularly fighting against stereotypical portrayals of people of color on the comic book page.
In 1993, McDuffie co-founded Milestone Media along with creators Denys Cowan, Michael Davis and Derek T. Dingle. The company’s mission statement involved expanding the role of minorities in comics both on the page and off, and they launched (through DC Comics) a line of superheroes that included “Static,” “Icon” and Xombi” – all of which McDuffie had a hand in creating.
Over the years, the writer contributed to scores of notable comic book launches and series, always with a keen eye on character, regardless of race. In 2000, his character, Static, made the leap totelevision in the Saturday morning cartoon “Static Shock.” In 2003, an episode of the show dealing with gun violence earned the writer the Humanitas Prize.
In recent years, McDuffie pursued dual tracks in animation and comics writing. He served as story editor for the popular “Justice League Unlimited” animated series and wrote a number of DC’s recent direct-to-DVD animated films. McDuffie had notable runs on comic series “Fantastic Four” and “Justice League of America,” often incorporating Black characters into the core of the fabled franchises.
McDuffie’s latest work was the script for the “All Star Superman” animated adaptation, which went on sale today in stores across America. CBR ran a lengthy interview with McDuffie about that project last week and caught up with him, looking in good health and acting jovial, last week at the Paley Center’s Los Angeles premier for the film. McDuffie’s last known public statement was a post to his Facebook page Sunday at 12:17 PM Pacific. He was scheduled to sign at Golden Apple Comics tomorrow evening as part of Reggie Hudlin’s Reggie’s World launch party.
The writer is survived by his wife, though at this point no further details are available on what exactly happened to McDuffie. The staff of Comic Book Resources offers our deepest condolences to his family and friends.
Obituary by Comic Book Resources
Documentary Channel (DOC) will launch a new initiative in 2011 by showcasing the works of Black documentary filmmakers on the last Tuesday of every month in primetime. DOC is beginning the “Black Documentary Cinema” programming strand in collaboration with the New York-based The Black Documentary Collective (BDC) and the Los Angeles-based Black Association of Documentary Filmmakers-West (BAD West).
DOC’s “Black Documentary Cinema” initiative kicks off with the U.S. television premiere of poet-filmmaker S. Pearl Sharp’s critically acclaimed “The Healing Passage: Voices From the Water” on Tuesday, Feb. 22 at 8 pm ET/PT. Cultural artists in the 90-minute film, along with historians and healers, look at present day behavior that is connected to the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. For more than 300 years, Africans were carried from their homeland, across the Atlantic Ocean, into chattel slavery in the Americas and the Caribbean. The documentary explores the residual impact of this African Holocaust that still reverberates in the world today through psychological trauma, genetic memory, personal and community consciousness. The film’s artists use music, dolls, dance, altars, spoken word, visual art and ritual to create paths to healing.
Documentary Channel is primarily available through satellite television services DISH Network (Channel 197) and DIRECTV (Channel 267).
“The greenhouse on the Maryland plantation where famed abolitionist Frederick Douglass spent part of his childhood was not as uniquely European as once thought: Its furnace was built by slaves, who hid distinctly African touches within it to ward off bad spirits, researchers said.
“A stone pestle to control spirits was concealed in brick ductwork used to heat the orangery — a type of greenhouse used to shield citrus and other trees from chilly winters — and University of Maryland archaeologists found charms buried at the structure’s entrance, said excavation leader Mark Leone. The greenhouse was long considered a mark of European sophistication and was a status symbol of the era.”
By: Alex Dominguez, Associated Press
Click here to read the entire article.
The Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies presents:
A Brown Bag Talk by Nzingha Kendall
“En)visioning Black Female Subjectivity:
A close reading of
Kathleen Collins’s LOSING GROUND
&
Sara Gomez’s DE CIERTA MANERA”
Nzingha Kendall will provide an illuminating analysis of these important films –
don’t miss it!
Wednesday, February 23nd at 12:00 pm in Memorial Hall Room M39
Deadline for application: March 15, 2011
The 4th edition of Talent Campus Durban will take place from 22-26 July 2011, during the 32nd Durban International Film Festival (21-31 July). Talent Campus Durban is an intensive 5-day program delivered by film professionals to enhance both theoretical and practical approaches to filmmaking. Themed Africa in Motion, the 4th Talent Campus Durban presents a unique platform for African filmmakers to propel their careers through participation in a comprehensive series of seminars, workshops and industry networking activities. This year includes the addition of a Doc Station, where selected documentary projects submitted by accepted talents will be finessed and packaged for presentation within the Durban FilmMart.
40 filmmakers from 20 countries in Africa were selected for the successful 2010 edition, imbuing the Campus with a rich intercultural nature, and sparking exchanges and cooperation that will continue to feed the development of filmmaking across borders of this continent. Talent Campus Durban now invites filmmakers from Africa to apply to participate in the 2011 program, which takes place in Durban, South Africa, over five days. In addition to specific activities offered by the Campus, the selected talents will have the opportunity to attend films and events at the 32nd Durban International Film Festival.
“Crammed into this year’s field of 10 best picture Oscar nominees are British aristocrats, Volvo-driving Los Angeles lesbians, a flock of swans, a gaggle of Harvard computer geeks, clans of Massachusetts fighters and Missouri meth dealers, as well as 19th-century bounty hunters, dream detectives and animated toys. It’s a fairly diverse selection in terms of genre, topic, sensibility, style and ambition. But it’s also more racially homogenous — more white — than the 10 films that were up for best picture in 1940, when Hattie McDaniel became the first black American to win an Oscar for her role as Mammy in “Gone With the Wind.” In view of recent history the whiteness of the 2011 Academy Awards is a little blinding.”
02/11/10, The New York Times
Click here to read the entire article.
2011 Festival Fellows Program April 14-17, 2011
The Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival Fellows program brings outstanding graduate students of color enrolled in Ph.D programs to campus during the festival to immerse in screenings, lectures, workshops, master classes, concerts, and events within an engaging, interdisciplinary, think-tank environment.
The festival fellows cohort engages with Ithaca College faculty and students from across campus, as well as with festival guests, to explore linkages between sustainable development, different media platforms, globalization, race, ethnicity, gender, and music in order to stimulate new research and thinking in the areas of sustainability, interdisciplinary research, and international issues.
Selection to the festival fellows program is highly competitive; fellows are recruited from graduate programs across the United States in consultation with departments on the Ithaca College campus.
The festival fellows program is an initiative of the Office of Equal Opportunity Compliance.
For more information about the fellowship, contact Warren Schlesinger, coordinator of the FLEFF Fellows Program, at warren@ithaca.edu
The deadline for applications is Monday, March 14th, 2011.
download the application form
The TWN Film & Video Production Workshop is a unique “hands-on” program that provides practical skills and resources for emerging film and video makers.
The Production Workshop emphasizes on the training and support of people of color who have limited resources and access to mainstream educational institutions and traditional training programs within the film/video industry. Most past workshop participants now work in film, video and the media arts and include Academy Award nominees and Emmy winning filmmakers. Instructors and guest speakers are working media professionals.
The curriculum of this intensive 6 month program focuses on the pre-production, production and post-production skills necessary to take a short project from conception to completion. Workshop members will participate in projects shot on 16mm film and digital video. Workshop members will gain technical skills and experience through the projects, and will be trained to edit using the non-linear Final Cut Pro system.
The Production Workshop begins in early April and meets every Wednesday at 6:30 pm in the offices of TWN. The workshop is time intensive and participants must be able to attend regular class meetings as well as meet the out-of-class demands of pre-production, production, and post-production. Prior film, video or related experience is recommended but not required; creativity, self-initiative, time and a collaborative spirit are. The selection to the Production Workshop is limited to 9 participants. An initial written application is required and a second round of applicants are selected for interviews. The cost of the 2011 workshop will be $600.