Night Catches Us
/Wednesday, March 16th-Saturday, March 19th, 7:30pm
Night Catches Us
Tanya Hamilton, 2010, 89 min.
“Although Night Catches Us, is haunted by the threat and the memory of violence, its tone is sober and calm, almost serene. Staking out volatile, myth-enshrouded historical territory — Black Panther militancy, police brutality, the ebbing of the revolutionary intensity of the ’60s — Ms. Hamilton tells a modest, complex story with admirable clarity and nuance. That her film is so quiet, so evidently invested in contemplation rather than confrontation, gives it power as well as insight. The large dramatic gestures and sweeping implications are off-screen, between the lines, discernible as a kind of negative afterimage of what is actually seen. At the center of this story is Anthony Mackie, one of the most consistently interesting and surprising movie actors around: watchful, reserved and unassumingly magnetic. “- A. O. Scott, the New York Times.
Also stars the great Kerry Washington and Wendell Pierce with music by the Roots and Tariq
Trotter aka Black Thought in double time also playing Mackie’s brother.
On the Thursday, March 17th the screening will be followed by Q&A with Donna Murch,
author of Living For the City.
Donna Murch is the author of "Living for the City" and an Associate Professor of History at University of California Berkley. She is the co-director of the Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis and the Black Atlantic Lecture Series. She is currently finishing a new book on youth culture and underground economy.
On Friday, March 18th the screening will be followed by a Q&A with Black Panther Party Member Cleo Silvers and Panther Cub Orlando Green.
Cleo Silvers states that the focus of her life "continues to be the improvement of conditions for working people in every aspect of their lives; housing, healthcare, education, integrity, peace and justice, criminalization of youth in communities of color, and culture." Among other endeavors she sits on the boards for the Harlem Tenants Council, Brecht Forum, National Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, David Sanes Rodriguez Brigade for Peace in Puerto Rico and the Maysles Institute.
Orlando Green is a Panther cub, organizer and activist and one of the founders of the National Hip Hop Political Caucus and National Hip Hop Political Convention. He has also served on the steering committee of United for Peace and Justice.
On Saturday, March 19th the screening with be followed by a Q&A with Dir Tanya Hamilton and Black Panther Party Member Jamal Joseph as well as a reception sponsored by Sugar Hill Ale.
Tanya Hamilton was formally trained as a painter and Night Catches Us is her first film.
Jamal Joseph is a U.S. writer, director, producer, poet, activist, and educator. While incarcerated for his active participation in the Black Panther Party, Joseph earned two college degrees, and wrote five plays and two volumes of poetry. He is currently a professor and Chair of Columbia University’s Graduate Film Division and the artistic director of the New Heritage Theater in Harlem. He has been featured on HBO's Def Poetry Jam, BET's American Gangster and on Tupac's Shakur's "The Rose That Grew From Concrete" Volumes 1 & 2.
