AUGUST
Thursday, August 1- Sunday, August 4 2nd Annual BlackStar Film Festival
Dubbed“ the black Sundance” by Ebony Magazine, the BlackStar Film Festival, presented by the Knight Foundation, is a unique gathering of filmmakers and cinéastes who will participate in screenings and related programming illuminating the global black experience. The only event of its kind in Philadelphia— focusing on work from the African Diaspora— BlackStar provides a highly visible platform for independent black filmmakers and films about black people from around the world, providing genre-defying and beautifully-crafted works to a diverse audience thirsty for fresh perspectives. Join us for approximately 40 films, over four days, from four continents! This year’ s festival will offer exclusive Philadelphia premieres of international music videos, narratives, experimental films, and documentaries from a wide diversity of emerging and established directors and producers. In addition to special Q & As with several award-winning directors and producers, other activities include panel discussions, workshops, a children’ s program, a program of youth-produced media, a special honor presented to the Howard University Film Program, a live screenplay competition featuring celebrity judges, and a transmedia performance featuring renowned composer and music producer King Britt. For more info visit blackstarfest. org.
The 2013 BlackStar Film Festival is made possible by generous funding from the Knight Foundation, PECO, An Exelon Company, Howard University, individual donors, and in partnership with International House Philadelphia, The Barnes Foundation, two. one. five. Magazine, Okayplayer. com, Skai Blue Media, and our fiscal sponsor Art Sanctuary, Inc.
Tuesday, August 6 at 7pm CETRA LANGUAGE SOLUTIONS The Woman with The 5 Elephants dir. Vadim Jendreyko, Switzerland / Germany, 2009, digital, German and Russian with English subtitles, 93 min.
The 5 elephants are Dostoyevsky’ s great literary works, all of which have been translated by the 87-year-old Svetlana Geier, considered the world’ s most masterful translator of Russian literature into German. The filmmaker visits with a woman whose fascinating, dramatic life story has been colored by some of the most violent events in 20th century European history: Stalin’ s purges of the kulaks( responsible for her father’ s death) and the Nazi occupation of the Ukraine( ultimately responsible for saving her life and leading to a university education in Germany). A rigorous intellectual whom we’ re privileged to watch parse the language, word by word, with her colleague, she warms the screen with the depths of her dignity and humanity. Language as a civilizing force is the thread that runs through Geier’ s life, and it illuminates every minute of the film.
Free screening.
Wednesday, August 7 at 7pm Preservation Alliance Contextualizing Jazz in Philadelphia: An evening of documentaries
Coltrane’ s Philadelphia: A Documentary Film – Premier!
This short documentary relates the story of jazz giant John Coltrane and the years he spent in Philadelphia during the 1940s and 1950s. After migrating from his childhood home in North Carolina in 1943, Coltrane spent years honing his craft in the City of Brotherly Love. This short film, featuring interviews with jazz musicians who knew Coltrane when he called Philadelphia home, as well as footage of the City during the time period Coltrane lived here, illuminates the urban context in which the artist moved the music forward.
Members of the production team will be available for question and answers at the screening.
Sun Ra: A Joyful Noise dir. Robert Mugge, US, 1980, digital, 60 min.
This 1980 film documents performances by the Sun Ra Arkestra in Philadelphia, Washington D. C. and Baltimore. It features performances on the roof of the International House as well as interviews with Sun Ra and band members in both the University of Pennsylvania’ s Museum of Archeology & Anthropology and at the band’ s home base in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia. ihousephilly. org