Pride 2016: Pier Kids and the Work of Elegance Bratton

Friday, June 17th, 7:00pm
Co-Presented by Harlem Pride, Doc Watchers and Maysles Cinema
Supported by the Arts Council of the Southern Finger Lakes/NYSCA Presentation Fund.

Anthony + Christopher = Kim
Elegance Bratton, 2014, 5 min
Christopher helps his lover Anthony transform into their drag alter ego Kim Labeija.

Pier Kids: The Life
Elegance Bratton, 2011, 22 min
We experience the Christopher Street Pier with DeSean and Casper, two queer black homeless youth.

Walk For Me
Elegance Bratton, 2016, 1 min (excerpt)
Hassan Kendricks is set to make his Femme Queen debut in the shimmering lights of the Ballroom scene voguing as a girl named Hanna. His two worlds collide when his mom shows up and discovers her secret daughter.

Q&A with director Elegance Bratton followed by reception sponsored by Harlem Pride.

The People's Film Festival

Friday, June 3rd-Sunday, June 5th at the Maysles Cinema

The People’s Film Festival

The People’s Film Festival (TPFF) is a 4-Day annual film festival designed to showcase the best in independent films from around the world. TPFF is an initiative of The People’s Media, Music & Arts Foundation Inc. (TPMMAF)— a non-profit organization whose objective is to promote awareness in independent film, media, music, and art across the globe while encouraging those—particularly in the Harlem New York area, to develop a greater appreciation and understanding for cultural diversity in film. It was founded in 2012, with the goal to establish TPFF as “The Voice of ‘The People”—essentially the place to tell your story your way and have a true impact on that audience. The People’s Film Festival, which is held in Harlem, NY—which is known for its rich vibrant culture, historic landmarks, great music, literature, arts and entertainment—also collectively known as The Harlem Renaissance, but the synergistic atmosphere in which filmmakers and filmgoers alike come comeback year after year to actively share information, break bread and build relationships.

An Open Letter to NYC: Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania

Thursday, June 2nd, 7:30pm
Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania on 16mm Film

Jonas Mekas, 1974, 88 min
Divided into three parts, this landmark diary film by the great Jonas Mekas documents a trip to his ancestral village of Semeniskiai, Lithuania after twenty-five years of exile in the United States. Preceded, in the first part, by impressions of the Williamsburg where Mekas first settled as a refugee, and succeeded, in the second, by a visit with friends and colleagues in Vienna, significantly the trip home itself occupies only the work’s middle part, comprised of “100 glimpses of Lithuania,” fleeting, literally numbered, and all the more indelible for it.

Q&A with Jonas Mekas and reception to follow with Eastern European food.

This program is part of An Open Letter to NYC:
Immigrant Documentary Filmmakers and Their Films
Starting with the periods before, during, between, and after the two world wars through to the present day, the American film industry would not exist without the immigrant filmmaker. In fact all contemporary American art and media, including the current documentary renaissance, is enlivened by and rooted in the modern immigrant experience. An Open Letter takes stock in immigrant, refugee and expatriate documentary filmmakers and/or documentary films about immigration and pays special attention to filmmakers from dominant and emerging NYC populations including those of Caribbean, Eastern European, Latin American, South and East Asian, Middle Eastern and West African descent. Programmed by Jessica Green and Edo Choi.

This series is supported by New York City’s Department of Cultural Affairs (DCLA) as part of the 2016 Immigrant Cultural Initiative.

NYAFF 2016: Egypts Modern Pharaohs

Friday, May 13th-Sunday, May 15th
The 2016 New York African Film Festival

Sunday, May 15th, 2:00pm
Les Pharaons de L’Egypte Moderne (Egypt’s Modern Pharaohs)

Jihan El-Tahri, Egypt, France, USA, Qatar, 2014, 168 min
On January 25, 1952, downtown Cairo was burnt down: angry mobs demanded the departure of British colonial military rule and called for ‘bread, freedom and social justice’. Fifty-nine years later to the day, the same anger was displayed, the same slogan brandished – but this time against Egypt’s elected president. For six decades, Egypt’s post-colonial leaders forged a system that harnessed military and religious powers, struck a delicate balance in foreign relations and muzzled acomplacent civil society. What led the docile Egyptians to mass revolt? How were the promising ideals of the 1952 revolution hijacked? What led to the total breakdown of social justice and political freedom? Filmmaker Jihan El-Tahri has created a masterpiece trilogy of films about former Egyptian presidents Gamal Abdel Nasser, Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak, aptly titled,Egypt’s Modern Pharaohs!

NYAFF 2016: Child of the Revolution

The 2016 New York African Film Festival

Xoliswa Sithole, Zimbabwe, 2014, 73 min
Child of the Revolution is a documentary of Zimbabwe`s journey from colonialism to the present, through the eyes of Xoliswa Sithole.

NYAFF 2016: Too Black to be French?

Friday, May 13th-Sunday, May 15th
The 2016 New York African Film Festival

Friday, May 13th, 7:00pm
Too Black to be French?

Isabelle Boni-Claverie, France, 2015, 52 min
In 2010, offended by the racist comments against black people held by Jean Paul Guerlain on the France 2 TV news, Isabelle Boni-Claverie organized several demonstrations on the Champs Élysées, negotiated with the power players, and obtained a series of measures to promote diversity. However, this incident, which she documents in the film, left her with a bad taste. How is it that in today’s France, this is still happening? In response to this question, using a first-person approach, the filmmaker leads an investigation. She invokes the model story of her grandparents, an interracial couple of the 1930s. Reflecting on her upper middle-class childhood, she probes the relationship between class and race. Not without humor, in the manner of: “You know you are black when…”, she asks would-be interlocutors to testify before the camera about the exasperations that they experience. Both personal and collective, the film does not hesitate to call existing policies and beliefs into question.

Q&A with director Isabelle Boni-Claverie to follow the screening as well as a light reception.

NYAFF 2016: The Other Side of the Atlantic

Friday, May 13th-Sunday, May 15th
The 2016 New York African Film Festival

Sunday, May 15th, 6:00pm
The Other Side of the Atlantic (Do Outro Lado do Atlântico)

Márcio Câmara, Brazil, 2016, 90 min
The Other Side of the Atlantic builds a bridge in the ocean that separates Brazil and Africa. The film tackles cultural exchanges, beliefs, prejudice and dreams built on both sides of the Atlantic through the life stories of students of African descent living in Brazil.

NYAFF 2016: Tchindas

Friday, May 13th-Sunday, May 15th
The 2016 New York African Film Festival

Sunday, May 15th, 8:00pm
Tchindas

Marc Serena and Pablo García Pérez de Lara, Spain/Cape Verde, 2015, 95 min
Within a small, tropical Cape Verdean Island, the beloved Tchinda is hard at work preparing for a Carnival she hopes will capture the town’s imagination. Despite her great reputation, Tchinda remains humble and every afternoon she happily tours the neighborhood to sell her best “coxinhas”, a classic Brazilian treat: delicious fried balls of chicken. Filmmakers Marc Serena and Pablo García Pérez de Lara have crafted a lush, perceptive documentary that at times feels akin to a fairy tale. The film reveals a hidden landscape tucked far away from the world we know, where trans inclusion and teamwork make up the fundamental structure of a truly magical community and culture.

NYAFF 2016: Oya

Friday, May 13th-Sunday, May 15th
The 2016 New York African Film Festival

Saturday, May 14th, 2:00pm
Oya: Something Happened On The Way To West Africa!

Oluseyi Adebanjo, Nigeria/USA, 2015, 30 min
Oya: Something Happened On The Way To West Africa! follows my journey as a Queer Gender Non-Conforming Nigerian returning home to connect with Òrìṣà (African God/dess) tradition, and follow a trail back to the powerful legacy of my great grandmother, Chief Moloran Ìyá Ọlọ́ya. This personal and political story vibrantly investigates the heritage of command, mythology, gender fluidity, womyn’s power and the hidden truth behind the power of indigenous Yorùbá spirituality. As I encounter obstacles of a national strike and anti-gay marriage legislation to find the roots of the practice, will I be able to find affirmation for myself as a person between genders/worlds and take on this inheritance?The documentary illuminates the lives of Òrìṣà Ọya (Warrior Goddess), Chief Moloran Ìyá Ọlọ́ya and Seyi Adebanjo while interweaving Yorùbá mythology, poetry, performance, and expert interviews.

In Search of Finah Misa Kule (U.S. Premiere)
Kewulay Kamara, Sierra Leone, 2015, 42 min
In Search of Finah Misa Kule chronicles the quest of poet Kewulay Kamara to reconstitute an ancient epic handed down in his family. Kamara takes us back to his native Village of Dankawali in northeast Sierra Leone where the epic was written out by his father in the 1960s only to be destroyed when the village was razed during the recent Civil War in Sierra Leone.

Screening will be followed by a performance of music and/or poetry reading.

NYAFF 2016: Mixtress X

Friday, May 13th-Sunday, May 15th
The 2016 New York African Film Festival

Saturday, May 14th, 6:00pm
Mixtress X

Dante Kaba, USA, 2005, 74 min
Hip Hop is a cultural movement of black youth. As a constantly evolving form of self- expression and a social reflection of contemporary urban life, it is rooted in the oral history of African-American story-telling. Since the inception of Hip Hop, women dj’s have been a vital participants in the construction and development of this international musical genre. Mixtress X documents this untold story, spotlighting women hip hop artists this unique contribution to the musical form as they operate and contend with a predominantly male-dominated multi-million dollar industry. While excavating the history of unsung women dj’s and charting the course of the hip hop movement from a gendered point of view, Mixtress X seeks to provide an uncensored platform for these underground and mainstream women artists who have been transforming their self-images within global Hip Hop movement.

NYAFF 2016: Faaji Agba

Friday, May 13th-Sunday, May 15th
The 2016 New York African Film Festival

Saturday, May 14th, 7:45pm
Faaji Agba

Remi Vaughan-Richards, Nigeria, 2015, 90 min
Faaji Agba is a six-year journey by film-maker Remi Vaughan. Richards following seven, 68-85 yr old Yoruba master musicians in Lagos, Nigeria. They were forgotten by society, until Kunle Tejuoso, owner of Jazzhole Records, follows a trail to rediscover them and the ‘Faaji Agba Collective’ is born. Kunle’s journey starts with Fatai Rolling Dollar, which leads him to others such as Alaba Pedro, SF Olowookere, Ayinde Bakare and more. Their musical styles range from highlife, juju to afrobeat. The story starts in 2009 and follows them on their journey to perform in New York in 2011 where tragedy strikes. A year later, undeterred by the setback they perform again in Lagos, ends up being their last. Faaji Agba interweaves the history, culture and music scene of Lagos, Nigeria from 1940’s to 2015 as their joys and tragedies unfold.

An Open Letter to NYC: Reunification

Friday, May 6th, 6:30pm
Maysles Cinema, Third World Newsreel, and the Documentary Forum at City College Present:

Reunification

At City College of New York
Shepard Hall
259 Convent Ave. (corner of 140th and Convent Ave.)
Rooms 290 and 291

RSVP: HERE

6:30pm
Reception with Hong Kong cuisine
(Room 290)

6:30pm
Reception with Hong Kong cuisine
(Room 290)

7:00pm
(Room 291)
Reunification
Alvin Tsang, 2015, 85 min.

Between faded family photographs, old video footage, and interviews collected through the years, Alvin Tsang’s Reunification bears the look and feel of a documentary that’s taken decades to produce. Perhaps it required all that time for Tsang to fully process his family’s history and confront his own emotionally turbulent upbringing. For the audience though, that passing of time is key to the film’s powerful portrayal of tireless emotional reconciliation. When his mother and two siblings first immigrated from Hong Kong to Los Angeles in the early 1980s, six-year-old Alvin was forced to stay behind with his working, and consequently absent, father. Spending the following three years often alone in an empty apartment, he longed for his family’s reunification. However, upon Alvin and his father’s arrival to America, that dream was utterly and permanently shattered under circumstances the filmmaker has yet to fully comprehend to this day.

Reunification is Tsang’s poetic and self-reflexive exploration of many unresolved years – poetic in its wonderfully articulated narration and in its restraint as he grasps for any semblance of explanation. Backed by an achingly beautiful score, the film moves moodily across different channels and modes, bending into labor histories and Hong Kong’s colonial trajectories, wading in the mire of nostalgia, grief, and confusion that is his past. And in his search for answers, Tsang turns the camera on his own family, cautiously prodding for answers, but fully acknowledging that the only closure he can get will be from deciding for himself how to move on. –Brandon Yu

Q&A with director Alvin Tsang to follow screening.

This program is part of An Open Letter to NYC:
Immigrant Documentary Filmmakers and Their Films
Starting with the periods before, during, between, and after the two world wars through to the present day, the American film industry would not exist without the immigrant filmmaker. In fact all contemporary American art and media, including the current documentary renaissance, is enlivened by and rooted in the modern immigrant experience. An Open Letter takes stock in immigrant, refugee and expatriate documentary filmmakers and/or documentary films about immigration and pays special attention to filmmakers from dominant and emerging NYC populations including those of Caribbean, Eastern European, Latin American, South and East Asian, Middle Eastern and West African descent. Programmed by Jessica Green and Edo Choi. Venues will include City College in Winter 2016, and City College and the Maysles Cinema in Spring 2016.

This series is supported by New York City’s Department of Cultural Affairs (DCLA) as part of the 2016 Immigrant Cultural Initiative.

James Baldwin: The Price of the Ticket

Wednesday, April 6th, 6:30pm
The Schomburg and the Maysles Cinema Present:

James Baldwin: The Price of the Ticket

The Langston Hughes Auditorium
at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
515 Malcolm X Blvd (Between 135th and 136th Street)

RSVP: HERE

Karen Thorsen, 2015, 87 min

Back in 1989, the 16mm version of Baldwin received stellar reviews and awards. Honored at festivals in over two-dozen countries – including Sundance, London, Berlin and Tokyo – the film was described as “Splendid” by Variety, “A video page-turner” by The San Francisco Chronicle, and “A haunting, beautifully made biography” by the Los Angeles Times. “Stays with you after the program ends,” said the New York Times. Now considered a documentary film classic, the original Baldwin film has been restored and re-mastered in 2K HD with the help of the Ford Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts in honor of James Baldwin’s 90th birthday. An emotional portrait, a social critique, and a passionate plea for human equality, this film is a vérité feast. Without using narration, the film allows Baldwin to tell his own story: exploring what it means to be born black, impoverished, gay and gifted – in a world that has yet to understand that “all men are brothers.”Intercutting rarely-seen archival footage from over one hundred sources and nine different countries, the film melds intimate interviews and eloquent public speeches with astounding private glimpses of Baldwin.

The film also includes a rich selection of original footage: scenes from Baldwin’s extraordinary funeral service; explorations of Baldwin’s homes on three continents, including France, Switzerland, Turkey and Harlem; plus on-camera interviews with close friends, colleagues and critics. Witnesses include his brother David; biographer David Leeming; writers Maya Angelou, Amiri Baraka, William Styron, Ishmael Reed and Yashar Kemal; painter Lucien Happersberger and entertainer Bobby Short.

Baldwin has not been shown in Harlem since 1989 (at the Schomburg then as well) and this is the first time the remastered version is being shown publicly in Harlem anywhere.

A Nobody Knows / DKDmedia / Maysles Films / American Masters Presentation of
A Karen Thorsen, Produced by William Miles & Karen Thorsen, Co-Produced by Douglas K. Dempsey,Executive Producers Albert Maysles & Susan Lacy

“Succeeds remarkably in getting into the mind and spirit of the most celebrated Black
writer of our time. — New York Times

“A splendid film. Keen and careful. Beautifully structured.” — Variety

A Q&A with director Karen Thorsen, James Baldwin’s niece Aisha Karefa-Smart, and his nephew Trevor Baldwin will follow the screening.

An Open Letter to NYC: Can

Wednesday, March 23th, 6:30pm
The Maysles Cinema, Third World Newsreel and the Documentary Forum at City College Present:
Can

At City College of New York
Shepard Hall
259 Convent Ave. (corner of 140th and Convent Ave.)
Rooms 290 and 291

RSVP: documentary@ccny.cuny.edu

6:30pm
with Korean and Vietnamese food
(Room 290)
7:00pm
(Room 291)
Can
Pearl J. Park, 2013, 65 min.

What does it take to heal from mental illness? Can follows Can Truong, a refugee who was among the millions of boat people who fled Vietnam in 1979, as he searches for healing, dignity and recovery from depression and bipolar disorder. This film, which is one of the first feature documentaries about an Asian American dealing with mental illness, followed Can who became active in the national mental health consumer movement, a civil rights efforts by and for people with mental illnesses. Though he was once an outstanding scholar, Can was forced, due to his mental health issues, to leave the University of Chicago where he was undertaking pre-med studies in 1993.

During the following 12-year period, Can was hospitalized 6 times, tried more than 20 different medications, entered several clinical drug trials, and underwent 15 electroconvulsive shock treatments. Through it all, Can becomes a mental health recovery advocate — one of the few Asian Americans in the country. Representing the U.S. recovery movement, he attended the World Federation Mental Health Congress in Cairo, Egypt in 2005. Though many Southeast Asians are reluctant to seek psychiatric help in fear of shaming their family, the subject of our film defies many cultural norms, tries numerous healing modalities and fights for his recovery.

Q&A with first generation Korean American filmmaker Pearl J. Park and Vietnamese American editor Xuan Vu to follow the screening.

This program is part of An Open Letter to NYC:
Immigrant Documentary Filmmakers and Their Films

Starting with the periods before, during, between, and after the two world wars through to the present day, the American film industry would not exist without the immigrant filmmaker. In fact all contemporary American art and media, including the current documentary renaissance, is enlivened by and rooted in the modern immigrant experience. An Open Letter takes stock in immigrant, refugee and expatriate documentary filmmakers and/or documentary films about immigration and pays special attention to filmmakers from dominant and emerging NYC populations including those of Caribbean, Eastern European, Latin American, South and East Asian, Middle Eastern and West African descent. Programmed by Jessica Green and Edo Choi. Venues will include City College in Winter 2016, and City College and the Maysles Cinema in Spring 2016.

This series is supported by New York City’s Department of Cultural Affairs (DCLA) as part of the 2016 Immigrant Cultural Initiative.

BaddDDD Sonia Sanchez

Thursday, March 31st, 6:00pm
The Maysles Cinema, Documentary Forum at CCNY, the City College Performing Arts Center, Third World Newsreel, CCNY Poetry Outreach Center, the Black Documentary Collective, and the Black Studies Program at CCNY Present:

BaddDDD Sonia Sanchez

At The Marion Anderson Theatre in Aaron Davis Hall, CCNY
(Between 133rd and 135th Street on Convent Avenue)

RSVP: HERE

6:00pm
Reception

6:30pm
Live Poetry Reading

7:00pm
BaddDDD Sonia Sanchez
Sabrina Schmidt Gordon, Janet Goldwater, Barbara Attie, 2015, 90 min

The life and thoughts of this iconic poet, playwright, teacher, activist whose whole life is art and politics, and mesmerizing. With appearances by Questlove, Talib Kweli, Ursula Rucker, Amiri Baraka, Haki Madhubuti, Jessica Care Moore, Ruby Dee, Yasiin Bey, Ayana Mathis, Imani Uzuri and Bryonn Bain, this doc examines Sanchez’s contribution to the world of poetry, her singular place in the Black Arts Movement and her leadership role in African American culture over the last half century. This screening opens the Media Magic Mt. Vernon International Film Festival.

The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Sonia Sanchez and Sabrina Schmidt Gordon.

An Open Letter to NYC: From the Other Side

Wednesday, February 24th, 6:30pm
The Maysles Cinema and the Documentary Forum at City College Present:

From the Other Side

Q&A with Anjanette Levert, journalist, documentary filmmaker and live events producer for the Documentary Forum at the City College.

From the Other Side
Chantal Akerman, 2002, 99 min

At City College of New York
Shepard Hall
160 Convent Ave. (SE corner of 140th and and Convent)
Rooms 290 and 291

RSVP: documentary@ccny.cuny.edu

The third in a cycle of geographically titled documentaries concerned with the politics of place, From the Other Side finds the late, great Belgian-Jewish filmmaker, and City College Filmmaker in Residence, Chantal Akerman (June 6th, 1960 – October 5th, 2015) traveling to the dusty, windswept towns that line the Mexico-Arizona border in an attempt to put a human face on the United States government's broken immigration policy. Interspersing interviews with civilians and officials on both sides of the border among deliberately extended views of the surrounding landscape, desolate and eerily emptied, Akerman constructs a dialectic between the sparse signs of human presence she discovers in Agua Pietra, Sonora, and Douglas, AZ and the enveloping sense of absence that haunts these huddled communities. Tragic tales of would-be immigrants who disappeared somewhere in the desert or met gruesome ends at the hands of vigilante justice are imparted against a silence as ghostly disquieting as it is respectful and observant. Shot in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 when American xenophobia had reached a fever pitch not to be matched until the Paris attacks last November, Akerman's film demonstrates just how little has changed in the last fifteen years.

Q&A with Anjanette Levert, journalist, documentary filmmaker and live events producer for the Documentary Forum at the City College.

This program is part of An Open Letter to NYC:
Immigrant Documentary Filmmakers and Their Films

Starting with the periods before, during, in between, and after the two world wars -- until present day -- the American film industry would not exist without the immigrant filmmaker. In fact all contemporary American art and media, including the current documentary renaissance, is enlivened by and rooted in the modern immigrant experience. An Open Letter takes stock in immigrant, refugee and expatriate documentary filmmakers and/or documentary films about immigration and pays special attention to immigrant filmmakers from dominant and emerging NYC populations including filmmakers of Caribbean, Eastern European, Latin American, South and East Asian, Middle Eastern and West African descent. This series is programmed by Jessica Green and Edo Choi and takes place at City College in the winter 2016 and City College and Maysles Cinema in spring 2016.

This series is supported by New York City’s Department of Cultural Affairs (DCLA) as part of the 2016 Immigrant Cultural Initiative.