2009 Langston Hughes African American Film Festival Winners Announced

The Langston Hughes African American Film Festival (LHAAFF), an annual presentation of the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center in Seattle, Washington gives Northwest audiences a chance to view a diverse array of irreverent, poignant, provocative documentary and narrative films on topics such as youth, politics, history, social justice and relationships.

Films in the Langston Hughes African American Film Festival (LHAAFF) combine both call-for-work entries and curated films selected by the curator and committee. Awards are given to

call-for-work entries in three categories; Audience Award, Jury Award and Local Filmmaker Award. In 2009 the festival gave an additional nod to Short films as a separate category.

AUDIENCE AWARD - BEST SHORT FILM

PRODUCTION-USA 2008

Director: Lenny Payan, Writer/Producer Carmen Scott Payan

In 2006, Carmen L. Scott was beginning her first season as a writer's assistant at "Law & Order: Criminal Intent". When a rough draft of a script for a hip-hop themed episode of the show crossed her desk in December of 2006, one month after the Sean Bell shooting, she began blogging about the 16 days it took to shoot the episode and the uneasiness she felt helping the stereotype-laden script get filmed. Ultimately she would turn the blog into a screenplay, and with the help of husband and partner, Lenny Payan, into a short film.

AUDIENCE AWARD BEST FEATURE FILM

US: A LOVE STORY USA 2008
Director. Alrick Brown

JURY AWARD - BEST FEATURE FILM

US: A LOVE STORY USA 2008
Director. Alrick Brown
This haunting film explores impact and consequences of a union consecrated in blood. One couple's love story is a metaphor for the history of White/Black race relations in the USA. Filmmaker Alrick Brown continues to reveal himself as a "filmmaker to watch" winning two of the festival's most prestigious awards. Previous films by Brown include "Death of Two Sons", based on the lives of Amadou Diallo and Jesse Thyne, "Familiar Fruit" a modern day Greek tragedy that leaves the audience holding the torch, and "The Adventures of SuperN----", an allegory about the shooting death of Amadou Diallo.
All of these films have screened at the LHAAFF.

JURY AWARD - BEST SHORT FILM

5 Days in July revisits the 1967 Newark Riots, an important cataclysmic moment in American history. This civil disturbance began when African American cab driver and musician John W. Smith was arrested, beaten and dragged into Fourth Precinct for a minor traffic infraction. This action triggered rebellion among the African American community that spread throughout Newark. To quell the unrest, government officials mobilized the New Jersey State Police and National Guard.

LOCAL FILMMAKER AWARD

THIS IS...206 ZULU (USA 2009)
Director Georgio Brown

Local filmmaker Georgio Brown takes a detour from 18 years of producing Coolout TV to create an intimate look at hip hop and social justice collective, the 206 Zulu Nation. The 206 Zulus are multicultural family of artists who form the Seattle chapter of the larger 206 Zulu Nation, and international social justice hip hop movement founded by Afrika Baambata. Candid discussion, performance and interviews with members of the collective.

About the Langston Hughes African American Film Festival:

The Langston Hughes African American Film Festival supports community building by providing opportunities for artists and audiences to connect using the medium of film as a catalyst for dialogue that leads to social change. The festival creates year round opportunities to enhance media literacy, self reflection, and community discussion. By creating the shared experience of films that are by and about Black people, the festival is a creative and collaborative opportunity to build cultural competency across the aisle and across neighborhoods in greater Seattle. www.langstonblackfilmfest.org

Quick link to film festival schedule

See the full festival schedule with updates here:
http://langston.bside.com/2009

2009 Festival News

Join us for nine days of thoughtful, inspiring and irreverent films featuring
filmmaker talkbacks, screenplay readings, workshops, panel chats and
provocative discussions –from across the aisle and across neighborhoods.

· Sixth Annual Langston Hughes African American Film Festival: Saturday April 18, 2009 - Sunday April 26, 2009

· Single Tickets Available March 30, 2009: Opening/Closing Night: $15;

Regular Showtimes: Adults: $7; Seniors: $5; Youth Under 16: $2.

· AVAILABLE NOW - “Langston Pass” All Festival Pass $75 at: www.brownpapertickets.com/event/59800

· Single tickets Available at www.BrownPaperTickets.com OR LHPAC Box Office.

· All screenings held at Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center: 104 17th Avenue South, Seattle, WA.

· Updated film details, schedule and information is available at www.langstonblackfilmfest.org

or by calling 206-326-1088.

· Check out the blog at http://lhaaffbside.blogspot.com/

For up to the minute festival updates Twitter: http://twitter.com/LHAAFF

Festival Highlights

· Celia the Queen- (West Coast Premiere) The story of the legendary Afro Cuban Diva Celia Cruz. Partnership with CineSeattle, the Seattle International Latino Film Festival – Closing night gala follows. www.celiathequeen.com

· Us: A Love Story- (Seattle Premiere) A beautiful and haunting allegory exploring the relationships between Blacks and Whites. Filmmaker Alrick Brown in attendance. www.usalovestory.com

· Prince of Broadway- (Seattle Premiere) Sean Baker’s award winning film showcases the underbelly of the wholesale fashion district through the eyes of Lucky and Levon; two immigrant men struggling to confront what is real and what is fake. www.princeofbroadway.com

· Hip Hop Film Mini-fest. Features B-Girl Be and 206 Zulu by local filmmaker Georgio Brown and Masizake: Building Each Other by local filmmaker Scott Macklin.

· Carmen and Geoffrey- (Seattle Premiere) An intertwined video history that explores the devoted relationship of dancers Geoffrey Holder and Carmen De Lavallade.

· 13th Amendment-(Seattle Premiere) This documentary short follows a 90-year-old great-great-grandmother on her trek to vote for Barack Obama in the 2008 Pennsylvania primary. Having voted all her life, this is her first opportunity to vote for a black man for President of the United States.

· Production (Seattle premiere) - Danielle's job as script coordinator for a popular TV drama changes when the producers plan to shoot an ill-conceived "urban" episode.

2009 Langston Hughes African American Film Festival, April 18 - 26

· The Langston Hughes African American Film Festival (LHAAFF) is an annual event presented by the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center in Central Seattle. The LHAAFF presents films from independent filmmakers from around the world. The LHAAFF features panel discussions, screenplay readings, matinée screenings for middle and high school youth and in-depth discussions with filmmakers, industry professionals and local community leaders.

· The 6^th annual Langston Hughes African American Film Festival takes place April 18-26, 2009. All screenings take place at the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center (LHPAC), 104 - 17th Avenue South, Seattle WA 98144 at the intersection of 17th Avenue South and Yesler Way (Metro bus route #27).

· Visit our website, http://www.langstonblackfilmfest.org or blog, http://lhaaffbside.blogspot.com/ for festival updates. Recorded updates are also available on our telephone Info Line: 206-326-1088.

· Program schedule and film screening show times will be made public in March; there are screenings each day of the festival. Matinees take place on Saturdays and Sundays. There are evening screenings each day of the week. Filmmaking workshops will take place on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. There will be one after-school youth film screening on a weekday afternoon. Late night screenings take place on Friday and Saturday nights.

· Tickets and festival passes will be available online via BrownpaperTickets.com, http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/55821, or at the LHPAC box office after March 20, 2009.

· The address of the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center is 104 - 17th Avenue South, Seattle WA 98144 at the intersection of 17th Avenue South and Yesler Way (Metro bus route #27).

· We are pleased to attract diverse audiences every year. All are welcome.

FEBRUARY ONE Civil Rights Era doc shows February 19th

FEBRUARY ONE
Documentary: 61 mins
Directors: Dr. Steven Channing & Rebecca Cerese
Date: Thursday, February 19, 2009
Location:MezzaLuna
2608 S Judkins St
Seattle, WA 98144
Time: 7:00 p.m.
Admission: $5 suggested donation
Langston Hughes African American Film Festival Info line: 206-326-1088

ABOUT THE FILM


Organization of American Historians Erik Barnouw Award Honorable Mention Recipient

In one remarkable day, four college freshmen changed the course of American history. February One tells the inspiring story surrounding the 1960 Greensboro lunch counter sit-ins that revitalized the Civil Rights Movement and set an example of student militancy for the coming decade. This moving film shows how a small group of determined individuals can galvanize a mass movement and focus a nation’s attention on injustice.

The Greensboro Four, Ezell Blair, Jr. (now Jibreel Khazan), David Richmond, Franklin McCain and Joseph McNeil, were close friends at North Carolina A&T University before they became political activists. Two of the four had grown up where segregation was not legal, while another’s father was active in the NAACP. They recount how the idea for the sit-in grew out of those late night “bull sessions” that make college years so rich. Prof. William Chafe helps set the historical context the four young men confronted: the Civil Rights Movement had stalled since the Brown decision and the Montgomery Bus Boycott. On the night of January 31, 1960 the four dared each other to do something that would change the South and their own lives forever. They decided to sit-in at the whites-only lunch counter at Woolworth’s in downtown Greensboro the next day.

On February 1st, dressed in their Sunday best, the four men sat down at the lunch counter. Frank McCain remembers that he knew then this would be the high point of his life, “I felt clean...I had gained my manhood by that simple act.” The four were refused service; when they did not leave the store the manager closed the lunch counter. In the days that followed they were joined by more students from local Black colleges and a few white students who also sat-in at other lunch counters in Greensboro. Prof. Vincent Harding reminds us that the Civil Rights Movement was the first major social movement to be covered by television news so word of the events in Greensboro spread across the nation like a prairie fire. Within just a few days students were sitting in at lunch counters in fifty-four cities around the South.

Greensboro’s civic leadership pressured the President of North Carolina A&T to halt the protests but he counseled the students to follow their own consciences. Finally after months of protests the Woolworth management quietly integrated its lunch counter. The wave of direct action started by the Greensboro Four coalesced in the formation of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the vanguard of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. February One not only fills in one of the most important chapters in the Civil Rights Movement, it reminds us that this was a movement of ordinary people motivated to extraordinary deeds by the need to assert their basic human dignity. It provides an eloquent argument to today’s generation of students that involvement in the politics of our own time is a vital part of any college education.

SPECIAL PARTNERSHIP FEBRUARY SAFE HOUSE SCREENING

REBIRTH OF A NATION
Experimental - 94min
Director-Paul Miller aka DJ Spooky
Date: Sunday, February 8
Time: 2PM
Location: Seattle Art Museum
Pletscheeff Auditorium
1300 First Avenue
Seattle, WA 98101-2003
FREE

In honor of Black History Month, the Langston Hughes African American Film Festival and the Seattle Art Museum are partners in presenting a special free screening of the film Rebirth of a Nation by Paul Miller (aka DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid).

The film is a 'remix' of D.W. Griffith's 1915 "Birth of a Nation" that was highly controversial due to its graphic portrayal of racism in the post-Civil War south. Miller's remix deconstructs one of the most influential and inflammatory movies ever made, while drawing striking parallels to present socio-political conflicts in America. The film includes Paul's original score, performed by Kronos Quartet.

Community post-screening discussion facilitated by Sandra Jackson-Dumont, Seattle Art Museum Kayla Skinner Deputy Director of Education + Public Programs/Adjunct Curator

Underground Railroad Film Series continues Feb. 19

FEBRUARY ONE
Documentary: 61 mins
Directors: Dr. Steven Channing & Rebecca Cerese
Date: Thursday, February 19, 2009
Location:MezzaLuna
2608 S Judkins St
Seattle, WA 98144
Time: 7:00 p.m.
Admission: $5 suggested donation
Langston Hughes African American Film Festival Info line: 206-326-1088

ABOUT THE FILM


Organization of American Historians Erik Barnouw Award Honorable Mention Recipient

In one remarkable day, four college freshmen changed the course of American history. February One tells the inspiring story surrounding the 1960 Greensboro lunch counter sit-ins that revitalized the Civil Rights Movement and set an example of student militancy for the coming decade. This moving film shows how a small group of determined individuals can galvanize a mass movement and focus a nation’s attention on injustice.

The Greensboro Four, Ezell Blair, Jr. (now Jibreel Khazan), David Richmond, Franklin McCain and Joseph McNeil, were close friends at North Carolina A&T University before they became political activists. Two of the four had grown up where segregation was not legal, while another’s father was active in the NAACP. They recount how the idea for the sit-in grew out of those late night “bull sessions” that make college years so rich. Prof. William Chafe helps set the historical context the four young men confronted: the Civil Rights Movement had stalled since the Brown decision and the Montgomery Bus Boycott. On the night of January 31, 1960 the four dared each other to do something that would change the South and their own lives forever. They decided to sit-in at the whites-only lunch counter at Woolworth’s in downtown Greensboro the next day.

On February 1st, dressed in their Sunday best, the four men sat down at the lunch counter. Frank McCain remembers that he knew then this would be the high point of his life, “I felt clean...I had gained my manhood by that simple act.” The four were refused service; when they did not leave the store the manager closed the lunch counter. In the days that followed they were joined by more students from local Black colleges and a few white students who also sat-in at other lunch counters in Greensboro. Prof. Vincent Harding reminds us that the Civil Rights Movement was the first major social movement to be covered by television news so word of the events in Greensboro spread across the nation like a prairie fire. Within just a few days students were sitting in at lunch counters in fifty-four cities around the South.

Greensboro’s civic leadership pressured the President of North Carolina A&T to halt the protests but he counseled the students to follow their own consciences. Finally after months of protests the Woolworth management quietly integrated its lunch counter. The wave of direct action started by the Greensboro Four coalesced in the formation of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the vanguard of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. February One not only fills in one of the most important chapters in the Civil Rights Movement, it reminds us that this was a movement of ordinary people motivated to extraordinary deeds by the need to assert their basic human dignity. It provides an eloquent argument to today’s generation of students that involvement in the politics of our own time is a vital part of any college education.