The UNDERGROUND RAILROAD FILM SERIES & LE CORDON BLEU COLLEGE OF CULINARY ARTS
PRESENT
“PRESSURE COOKER”

DIR. Jennifer Grausman, Mark Becker
Tuesday, September 21
Time: 6:30 PM
Location: Le Cordon Bleu
360 Corporate Drive, Tukwila WA
Admission: suggested donation of $5-7

The Langston Hughes African American Film Festival is pleased to partner with LE CORDON BLEU College of Culinary Arts to bring a unique screening experience to Seattle area audiences.

Join master chefs and chefs-in-training for an immersive culinary and cinema treat! Chefs will be on hand providing cooking demonstrations, tasty bites and insight on what it takes to make it in the competitive world of the culinary arts and, we will screen a powerful, poignant documentary that follows the paths of three students at Philadelphia’s Frankfort High.
Seating is limited and no late seating will be permitted, so RSVP early to reserve your spot! You must make reservations online: http://conta.cc/cxXTH4.

Join master chefs and chefs-in-training for an immersive culinary and cinema treat! Chefs will be on hand providing cooking demonstrations, tasty bites and insight on what it takes to make it in the competitive world of the culinary arts and, we will screen a powerful, poignant documentary that follows the paths of three students in Philly’s Frankford High.

There’s a force-of-nature behind the door to Room 325 at Frankford High School in Philadelphia. Her name is Wilma Stephenson and she teaches Culinary Arts. Infamously blunt, Mrs. Stephenson runs a “boot camp” at Frankford, disciplining her students into capable chefs and responsible students. Behind her tough-talking exterior is a teacher, who cares passionately about getting the best out of her students and making sure they receive the opportunities – including scholarships to top programs – that will help them escape the meager minimum-wage job opportunities of Northeast Philly.

Wilma Stephenson has taught at Frankford for 40 years, long before Culinary Arts became part of the school’s curriculum. She can be cantankerous, and she knows it, but she will do anything for the students who get with the program and show true promise and the hunger to succeed. Those who fall short of her discipline will not be missed; many will drop out before the first week is over.

documents Mrs. Stephenson and those students committed enough to surrender themselves to her enlightened despotism through both semesters in Culinary Arts. By the end of the school year, 13 of her students will have made it through the gauntlet. These seniors aspire to scholarships that can enable them to escape the status  quo of Northeast Philly and move on to a future of more opportunities. Mrs. Stephenson
spells it out on the first day of school by telling the newcomers that 11 members of last year’s class earned over $750,000 in scholarships, a staggering amount. At a school where over 40% of students don’t even make it to their senior year, Ms. Stephenson’s class stands in stark contrast. She offers these kids her version of the American Dream: You choose a realistic goal. You work hard. You work the system. You get out of Northeast Philly.

At the end of their school year, there is a one-day scholarship competition, where top Philadelphia chefs judge the students’ skills and talent. But, in the end, the scholarships are even more dependent on the kids’ capacity for sustained drive throughout their senior year. Can they endure the stressful challenges wrought by their home lives – having to hold minimum-wage jobs after school, and acting as surrogate parents to their siblings –
while still finding the motivation to wake up at 6AM to get to Mrs. Stephenson’s class early enough to master their crepes and tournee potatoes…

Seating is limited, so rsvp early to reserve your spot! Click here to reserve a seat.

PRESSURE COOKER

DIR. Jennifer Grausman, Mark Becker

Date: Tuesday, September 21
Time: 6:30 PM
Location: Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts
360 Corporate Drive, Tukwila WA
Suggested Donation $5

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We just can’t quit A DIOS MOMO.  This magical and vivid story of Obdulio a cheerful eleven-year-old Afro-Uruguayan boy who lives with his devoted grandmother and two sisters.

The Underground Railroad Film Series continues the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center’s Afro-Latino focus, exploring the intersections between Black and Brown people in the Americas. African slaves were brought to Uruguay, a small country between Brazil and Argentina mostly to work in the cities as servants and construction workers. Slavery is long gone but most Uruguayan blacks are locked into the same jobs as their ancestors; 80 per cent work in the service sector and three-quarters of all black women are employed as maids or cooks.

A film such as A DIOS MOMO is a rare gem in a country where Afro Uruguayans struggle for greater recognition and leadership. A disproportionate number of black Uruguayans live in poverty, and none have reached the upper levels of business or government. Blacks receive 20 percent less pay for similar work.

Still, most whites in Uruguay deny that racism exists.

A  DIOS MOMO is a beautiful journey reminding us that spirit triumphs when the system fails.

“Reminiscent of Cinema Paradiso and the films of Fellini, this gem for viewers of all ages and is a celebration of life, the beauty of friendship, and the magic of knowledge”.–Sara Nodjoumi & Aaron Dobbs

ADIOS MOMO
A film by Leonardo Ricagni

Date: OCTOBER 2010
Time: 7PM
Location: TBD

RETURN

(2006, 56 minutes, USA) Various languages with English subtitles
Director/Cinematographer: Damani Baker

Date: TBD

Time: TBD

Photo courtesy of Indiana University

This ambitious and hard-hitting documentary looks at the popularity of hip-hop among America’s white youth. It asks whether white identification is rooted in admiration and a desire to transcend race or if it is merely a new chapter in the long continuum of stereotyping, mimicry and cultural appropriation?

A much needed anecdote to much of the unsophisticated analysis of youth culture that floods our airways and our newspapers. ‘Blacking Up’ wrestles with the ambiguity and the consequence of cultural borrowing.

Lonnie Bunch , National Museum of African American History & Culture

The film presents a diverse group of white rap fans (often referred to by derogatory terms such as “wannabe” or “wigger”) and performers with very different ways of expressing their relationship to Hip-Hop music and culture. Against the unique backdrop of American popular music, Blacking Up  explores racial identity in U.S. society – how do white youth define and express themselves culturally? Why would creating an alternative persona be attractive to white suburban youth? What does “authenticity” mean in reference to Hip-Hop, an art form often based on “sampling” music from other performers? How does this type of performance affect the communities being emulated? How do white performers impact interracial dialogue and the cultural landscape? These questions are examined in fascinating vignettes featuring:
* A tense Hip-Hop battle between white and black students at Indiana University-Bloomington
* A backlash against “wiggers” in a Midwestern white community
* A revealing analysis of how rapper Vanilla Ice was marketed to mainstream audiences
* Performers whose use of racially-charged symbols beg comparison to minstrelsy

* A black-owned New York bus tour that specializes in bringing outsiders into the neighborhoods where Hip-Hop was first invented – replete with complimentary “bling”

The documentary places the issues of cross-cultural appropriation and desire in historical context, drawing parallels between the figure of the white Hip-Hop fan and previous incarnations of white identification with black culture. Blacking Up addresses the legacy of blackface performers such as Al Jolson (introducing us to the contemporary Al Jolson Fan Club). In addition, jazz figures like the “hipster” and rock and roll icons like Elvis Presley and the Rolling Stones are considered within a broader context of white appropriation of black cultural expression. The film posits that identifying with black culture has offered white performers and consumers a means to lift inhibitions, and in the case of Hip-Hop has given white men license to act aggressively masculine.

Throughout the documentary there is insightful commentary by African American cultural critics such as Amiri Baraka (who draws parallels to the beatnik era), Nelson George, Greg Tate, comedian Paul Mooney and Hip-Hop figures Chuck D, Russell Simmons, M1 of Dead Prez, and DJ Kool Herc. Blacking Up will be a useful resource for courses in Media Studies, Cultural Studies, Sociology, African American Studies, Anthropology and Cross-Cultural Dialogue as well as for Student Services programs.

Blacking Up: Hip-Hop’s Remix of Race and Identity

(USA 2010) 57 min

Directed by: Robert A. Clift

Screening Date: TBD

Location: TBD

A much needed anecdote to much of the unsophisticated analysis of youth culture that floods our airways and our newspapers. ‘Blacking Up’ wrestles with the ambiguity and the consequence of cultural borrowing.
		Lonnie Bunch , National Museum of African American History & Culture

The UnionDocs Collaborative is a one or two-year program; both a rigorous platform for exploring contemporary approaches to the documentary arts, and a process for developing an innovative group project. The program focuses on providing what we believe are the most effective educational resources for individuals at the beginning of their careers:

* Mentorship toward the production of an original work.

* Dynamic interaction among a network of talented peers.

* Direct contact and structured exchange with visiting artists.

* Exposure to a wide variety of practices and models.

* Regular group critique sessions.

* Exposure through a toured exhibition and/or publication of annual project.

The first iteration of this year’s UDC project, “Documenting Mythology,” premiered at Doc Fortnight 2010: The Museum of Modern Art’s International Festival of Nonfiction Film, and will be presented in Boston next month by The Sensory Ethnography Lab at Harvard University. A wider international distribution effort and tour is planned for the coming fall.

The UDC has been set up to be affordable and scheduled for individuals who work full-time or freelance. UnionDocs is able to offer an intensive learning experience at a price that one might expect to pay for just a single credit at a university. Some residency options are available for individuals considering moving to the NYC. The application deadline is August 1st, 2010 and further details are available online: http://www.uniondocs.org/uniondocs-collaborative/

Behind the luxurious extravaganza of the famous Mardi Gras in New Orleans on the desolate back streets, devastated by Katrina, survives one of the most ancestral and hidden celebrations of the African-American population: “The Mardi Gras Indian”.

The Mardi Gras Indians date back to the time of slavery as a tribute to the Native American tribes in Lousiana sho helped slaves runaway from the plantations seeking their freedom.

Dressed in splendorous costumes of bright feathers, the Indian Chiefs reenact with rituals and songs the roots and historical struggles of their community.

These rituals and songs are one of the main sources of contemporary jazz music of New Orleans.

Nevertheless, this tradition, a cultural heritage of United States, is running the risk of disappearing due to racism and the displacement created by Hurricane Katrina.

The Festival congratulates Director Pablo Palacios and Producer Julie Belafonte!

BURN is a documentary based on the 1921 race riot in the Greenwood neighborhood of Tulsa, Oklahoma. During the 16 hours of rioting, over 800 people were admitted to local hospitals with injuries, 35 city blocks were destroyed by fire, an estimated 10,000 people were left homeless and according to a Red Cross report close to 300 people were killed; making the Tulsa race riot the worst in US History. In this documentary writer, director and co-producer Harold Jackson III explores the effects of this horrific riot and how to this day the 16 hour event still has a huge impact on the city.

We congratulate Director Harold Jackson III

]]> http://www.langstonarts.org/?feed=rss2&p=1545 0 http://www.langstonarts.org/?p=1537 http://www.langstonarts.org/?p=1537#comments Thu, 06 May 2010 20:29:20 +0000 filmsistah http://www.langstonarts.org/?p=1537
Anomaly – Barack Obama’s presidency has brought conversations on racial identity to the forefront. ANOMALY is a groundbreaking documentary film that takes an insider’s look at the experiences of multiracial Americans. Through personal narratives, ANOMALY stimulates viewers to think about identity, family and community in a changing world.

The film features interviews and performances with singer/songwriter Gabriella Callender of Mahina Movement, spoken word artist Michelle Myers of Yellow Rage, poet/musician Pete Shungu, author/poet Thaddeus Rutkowski, along with community leaders and academic experts.