Produced by the Black Panther Commemoration Committee, in conjunction with Maysles Cinema. 

8. WE WANT freedom for all black men held in federal, state, county and city prisons and jails. Remembering our Political Prisoners    

{Proceeds from our film festival, after expenses is used to supply commissary for Political Prisoners.}  

Saturday, September 28th, 4:00pm

Justifiable Homicide

Jon Osman and Jonathan Stack, 2002, 85 min.

On Jan. 12, 1995, two young Puerto Rican residents of the Bronx, Anthony Rosario and Hilton Vega, were shot to death by detectives of the New York Police Department. The officers said they were acting in self-defense, firing on two men in the act of committing an armed robbery. A grand jury believed them, and no charges were brought against them. The makers of Justifiable Homicide suggest that the subsequent firings of the director of the review board and the investigators assigned to the Rosario-Vega case were a result of the Giuliani administration's desire to make the case go away. Justifiable Homicide is an exploration of the killings and their aftermath.

Post-screening panel discussion.

Saturday, September 28th, 7:00pm

The FBI's War on Black America

Deb Ellis and Denis Mueller, 1991, 47 min.

The FBI's War on Black America offers a thought provoking look at a government-sanctioned conspiracy, the FBI's counter intelligence program known as Cointelpro. This documentary establishes historical perspective on the measures initiated by J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI which aimed to discredit black political figures and forces of the late 1960's and early 1970's. Combining declassified documents, interviews, rare footage and exhaustive research, it investigates the government's role in the assassinations of Malcolm X, Fred Hampton and Martin Luther King Jr. The film reflects the rigorous research which went into its making, and portrays the nation's unrest during the period it recounts.

Post-screening panel discussion with original members of the Black Panther Party.

Invited Director Melvin Van Peebles

Featured Speakers: Directors Margarita Rosario, Stephen Vittoria, Ojore Lutalo & Joanne L. Hershifield. Attorneys Jill Soffiyah Elijah & Joan Gibbs. Panthers Bullwhip, Cleo Silvers, Pam Hanna, Cisco Torres, Shaba-Om, & Jamal Josephs. Also King Downing, Shaka Shakur and Bonnie Kerness

Thursday, October 3rd, 7:00pm

Political Prisoners Short  (10 min.)

Yesterday Is Not Too Soon (Interview with Assata Shakur)

Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, 1997, 16 min.

Assata interviewed by activist Dorsey Nunn.

Mama C. Urban Warrior in the African Bush

Joanne Hershfield, 2012, 60 min.

The film explores Mama C’s decade’s long project of coming to terms with who she is—an African American raised in Kansas City, KS, the “jazz-capital of the world,” who has lived most of her life in Africa, the place from where her ancestors were forced to make the “middle-passage.” When she first arrived in Tanzania she tried as hard as she could to “fit in,” wearing khangas, carrying my babies on my back, basket on my head, chewing sugar cane sticks.” As she writes in one of her published poems, “In my freshly-landed, just-got-off-the-boat enthusiasm of living in Africa, I tried to blend, to melt, homogenize, disappear, erase, the essence of what made me who I am, an African, who grew up in and was molded by the ‘hoods’ of America, and I almost lost myself, self.”

Post-screening Skype Q&A with director Joanne Hershfield.