Underground Railroad
The Underground Railroad Film Series (URFS) is the neighborhood participation component of the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center’s African American Film Festival. The URFS uses the metaphor of the Underground Railroad to illuminate that community can exist over many miles and many backgrounds with one common cause.
Each month from September through February, at various ‘safe houses’ in greater King County, the Underground Railroad Film Series partners with community groups, organizations and traditionally marginalized populations to host a screening of films by or about Black people that intersect across cultures, providing opportunities for community engagement and self-reflection.
This moveable feast of provocative films features post-screening panels that provide context and stimulate thoughtful discussions that connect audiences across the aisles and across neighborhoods.
2009 – 2010 SCHEDULE
SEPTEMBER SAFE HOUSE SCREENING
ADIOS MOMO
A film by Leonardo Ricagni
Date: Wednesday, September 16
Time: 7PM
Location: Central Cinema
1411 21st Avenue (21st @ Union) map
The 2009 Underground Railroad Film Series continues Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center’s Afro-Latino focus, exploring the intersections between Black and Brown people in the Americas. A DIOS MOMO (Uruguay) is the magical and vivid story of Obdulio a cheerful eleven-year-old Afro-Uruguayan boy who lives with his devoted grandmother and two sisters. He is the self-proclaimed “man of the house” and sells newspapers on the street to make money to live and to buy needed school uniforms for his sisters.
African slaves were brought to this 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.
Presented in celebration of Seattle’s newest ethnic film festival, the Seattle International Latino Film Festival. www.cineseattle.org
OCTOBER SAFE HOUSE SCREENING
MY FATHER THE LUO
A Film by Tomasz Magierski
My Father the Luo is a film about finding one’s identity. The main character is Roma Ndolo, a young woman who grew up in Germany with parents from Poland and Kenya. She had always longed to find out more about her “African side” so she travels to her late father’s homeland. While there she recognizes the parallels between her own life and that of President Barack Obama.
Each of their fathers were from the Luo tribe and Obama’s half sister is Roma’s family friend. This film was shot during the Democratic Convention in Denver 2008. Not surprisingly there is also a historic footage of Senator Obama’s trip to Kenya in 2006. Prof. Gilbert Ogutu of the University of Nairobi, also a Luo, remarks that Kenyans were enthusiastic about Obama and curious whether he was more American or Kenyan.
NOVEMBER SAFE HOUSE SCREENING
PRESSURE COOKER
Dir. Mark Becker, Jennifer Grausman
November 24, 2009 (Note: New Date)
Location: Soho Coffee 1918 E Yesler Wy, Seattle, WA 98122
Suggested Donation $5
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.
DECEMBER SAFE HOUSE SCREENING
PROCEED AND BE BOLD
Dir. Laura Zinger
December 17, 2009 @7pm
(Amos Paul Kennedy Jr. scheduled to attend this screening)
Location: Hidmo, 2000 South Jackson Street, Seattle. Metro bus #14.
Suggested Donation $5
Kennedy will have art for sale at this event!
Perfect for holiday giving.
Amos Paul Kennedy Jr. is an internationally recognized printing press artist, though he would rather be referred to as a “humble Negro printer.”
This self-proclaimed “humble (sometimes lowly) Negro printer” tossed aside his corporate 9-to-5 job at AT&T with its steady income, chooses to live in extremely rural Alabama towns and goes wherever his art takes him. Amos found his calling making chipboard posters he sells inexpensively, so anyone andatc1 everyone can afford his art.
JANUARY 2010 SAFE HOUSE SCREENING
JOSEPHINE BAKER: BLACK DIVA IN A WHITE MAN’S WORLD
Director: Annette von Wagenheim
This is a WDR (Westdeutscher Rundfunk) television production
Date: Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Time: 7:30 PM
Location: Seattle Art Museum, Pletscheff Auditorium
Admission: Suggested donation of $5 at the door (no advance ticket sales)
A tender, revealing documentary about one of the most famous and popular performing artists of the 20th century. Her legendary banana belt dance created theatre history; her song “J’ai deux amours” became a classic, and her hymn. The film focuses on her life and work from a perspective that analyses images of Black people in popular culture. It portrays the artist in the mirror of European colonial clichés and presents her as a resistance fighter, an ambulance driver during WWII, and an outspoken activist against racial discrimination involved in the worldwide Black Consciousness moveDPA-BILD/03016494ment of the 20th century. A panel discussion with visual and performing artists will follow the screening.
FEBRUARY 2010 SAFE HOUSE SCREENING
NAT TURNER: A TROUBLESOME PROPERTY
Directed by Charles Burnett
February 18, 2010
Location TBD
Suggested Donation $5
Nat Turner’s slave rebellion is a watershed event in America’s long and troubled history of slavery and racial conflict. Nat Turner: A Troublesome Property is directed by Charles Burnett and tells the story of that violent confrontation and of the ways that story has been continuously re-told during the years since 1831. It is a film about a critical moment in American history and of the multiple ways in which that moment has since been remembered. Nat Turner was a “troublesome property” for his master and he has remained a “troublesome property” for the historians, novelists, dramatists, artists and many others who have struggled to understand him.
2008-09 SCHEDULE
SEPT. 24 HOW DO I LOOK
Documentary – USA 2006; 80min
Director- Wolfgang Bush
A chronicle of the gay Harlem Ball tradition, featuring the gritty and glamorous testimony of African American and Latino gay & transgendered people who excited the runways of Harlem and beyond. Panel Discussion follows.
OCT 15 – TALKING WITH STONES
Documentary – Holland 1995
Films that offer vital material on two key figures in the history of the beautiful Shona sculpture of Zimbabwe, featuring Nicholas Mukomberanwa and Joram Mariga.
Companion to Langston’s October presentation of the world premiere play, “Bobby and Jerome”, set in a stone yard in Harlem. Panel Discussion to follow
AKIRA’S HIP HOP SHOP
ELI’S LIQUOR STORE
November 20
Narrative – USA 2007
These two films explore relationships between Blacks and Asians. In “Akira’s” love blooms between a Japanese man and a Black woman who share a love of Hip Hop. “Eli’s” is a tale of a Black storeowner in L.A’s Koreatown, who finds simple joys in his neighborhood. Discussion follows
TROUBLE THE WATER
Monday, December 29 7PM
Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center
Documentary – USA 96mins
Dir. Tia Lessin and Carl Deal
Trouble the Water is the award winning film that goes inside Hurricane Katrina through the lens of unlikely heroes, Kim and Scott Roberts. A powerful and moving tale of grace and humanity.
HANDS OF GOD
Thursday, January 14 20097PM
Location: Langston Hughes PAC
Documentary – Peru 2004 54mins
Director: Delia Ackerman
Afro-Peruvian music is rooted in multiple rhythms coming from Africa. The percussion artist Chocolate composed and played many music styles, taught all over the world and contributed to the creative development of numerous artists including the dance group Peru Negro. Chocolate mixes the traditional and the contemporary, from cajón to Jazz.
Companion to Langston’s June co-production of “Callejon the Alley”. Discussion to follow
FEBRUARY ONE
Thursday, February 19 2009 7PM
Location: Mezza Luna Bistro
Documentary – USA 2004 61mins
FEBRUARY ONE tells the compelling story of four students from North Carolina A&T University who initiated the 1960 Greensboro Woolworth lunch counter sit-ins, setting into motion a whirlwind of sit-ins that swept the South and reignited the Civil Rights movement. Discussion to follow
2007-08
2006-07
2005-06
