MODERATING
Chicago International Film Festival
Q&As
Marian Anderson: The Whole World in Her Hands Q&A
Livestreamed Q&A for Marian Anderson: The Whole World in Her Hands with director Rita Coburn, executive producer Brenda Robinson, and actor Regina Taylor, moderated by film programmer Joyy Norris.
Discover an international singer who captivated royalty in Europe and defied the conscience of 1939 America. Watch rare archival footage and hear audio recordings exploring her life and career from the Metropolitan Opera to the State Department.
Available on: WTTW Passport
Description courtesy of PBS American Masters
The 56th Fest (2020)
The first virtual fest in the Cinema/Chicago’s history and my first time as Programmer of the Black Perspectives program.
Mama Gloria
In conversation with director Luchina Fisher, producer Yvonne Welbon, and star subject Gloria Allen.
Available on: PBS.org.
Mama Gloria is a feature documentary about Gloria Allen, a 75-year-old Black trailblazing transgender activist who started a charm school for homeless trans youth and is now aging with joy and grace. It is the story of a mother’s love – the love that Gloria’s mother had for her and the love that Gloria has for her chosen children.
Description courtesy of www.pbs.org
Farewell Amor
In conversation with director Ekwa Msangi and actor Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine.
Available on: Hulu, Apple TV, Vudu and Amazon Prime.
After 17 years in New York, working to support his family back in Angola, Walter has grown ever more comfortable living as a single man in the U.S. When wife Esther and daughter Sylvia are finally able to join him in the city, the three must find a way to reconnect as the time apart has rendered them virtual strangers. Arranged in chapters told from the perspective of each character, this insightful, beautifully conceived film captures the immigrant experience with finely detailed nuance, as Sylvia’s embrace of urban youth culture and dance sets the stage for an inevitable clash of values. From their colliding worlds, can they fashion an entirely new sense of home?
Description courtesy of Chicago International Film Festival
MLK/FBI
In conversation with director Sam Pollard.
Available on: Hulu, Amazon Prime, Apple TV and more.
It should come as no surprise that the FBI mounted a relentless campaign of surveillance and harassment of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., but this astonishing documentary reveals both the shocking details of the operation and the complexity of the iconic man in its crosshairs. Using newly declassified files, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Sam Pollard (Chicago International Film Festival’s “Best of the Fest” director of Two Trains Runnin’ and Sammy Davis Jr: I’ve Gotta Be Me) brilliantly weaves together revelatory restored archival footage, Hollywood movie clips, and interviews with key cultural figures to tell an astonishing and chilling story about power, racism, and the dark side of the U.S. government.
Description courtesy of Chicago International Film Festival
40 Years a Prisoner
In conversation with director Tommy Oliver and Subject Mike Africa Jr.
Available on: HBO Max, Hulu and Amazon Prime.
This powerful documentary bears witness to the lifelong efforts of Michael Africa, Jr. to secure the freedom of his parents, who were incarcerated for four decades. Along with seven other members of MOVE, a Black Liberation group active in Philadelphia in the 1970s, Debbie and Michael Africa, Sr. were charged in the death of a police officer during a brutal raid by authorities at the end of that decade. Interviews with journalists, activists, and others, along with archival footage of the MOVE commune, are intercut with Michael Africa, Jr.’s ongoing battles with the courts. With uncanny resonance to our current moment, the film delivers a bracing examination of the embattled state of liberty in the face of a racially and politically biased justice system.
Description courtesy of Chicago International Film Festival
Sylvie’s Love
In conversation with director Eugene Ashe.
Available on: Amazon Prime.
In Sylvie’s Love, the jazz is smooth and the air sultry in the hot New York summer of 1957. When Sylvie (Tessa Thompson), the daughter of a record-shop owner (Lance Reddick), meets Robert (Nnamdi Asomugha), a saxophonist who gets a part-time job at the shop, the two begin a friendship that sparks a deep passion in each of them unlike anything they’ve felt before. Years after their summer romance comes to an end, Sylvie has success as a TV producer, while Robert tries to come to terms with what the age of Motown is doing to jazz, the music that defines his work. While life continues to take Sylvie and Robert in different directions, they cross paths again, only to find their feelings for each other remain the same. Writer-director Eugene Ashe combines romance and music into a sweeping story that brings together changing times, a changing culture, and the true price of love.
Description courtesy of Chicago International Film Festival
Shorts 7: Evidence of Things Unseen
In conversation with Shorts Programmer Sam Flancher and the directors of the Black Perspectives Shorts Program: Terrance Daye, Nico Opper and Shannon St. Aubin, Kantarama Gahigiri, Amina Sutton, Maya Tanaka, Tebogo Malebogo, and Pat Heywood and Jamil McGinnis.
A young boy wrestles with his sense of self on the day of his cousin’s funeral in the tenderly-directed -Ship: A Visual Poem (U.S.). A warm-hearted portrait of teenage summer days, When I Write It (U.S.) follows two young Oakland artists as they come to grips with the change all around them. Ethereality (Switzerland/Rwanda) blends fiction and documentary to create a moving reflection about migration, home, and belonging. An aspiring artist discusses the challenges of finding affordable housing in a new city and the compromises she has to make with her spooky new roommates in The Price of Cheap Rent (U.S.). Heaven Reaches Down to Earth (South Africa) follows Tau and Tumelo during a journey across the South African landscape. When Tau comes to a realization about their sexuality, it sets in motion a cascade of thoughts and emotions. In Gramercy (U.S.) a young New Jersey native returns to his hometown, where his ongoing battle with depression becomes a poetic exploration of brotherhood and personal struggle.
Description courtesy of Chicago International Film Festival