Raoul Peck: Aprés the Earthquake

(Thursday, January 22nd-Sunday, January 25th)

Curated by Michelle Materre and the Creatively Speaking Film Series

Co-sponsored by the Haiti Cultural Exchange, The DDPA (Durban Declaration & Programme of Action) Watch Group, The BDC (Black Documentary Collective), The Haitian Creole Language Institute and Harlem Karibe

(Reflecting back on Haiti’s devastating earthquake 5 years later with a look at the

documentaries and fiction verite from globally recognized and Haitian born

master filmmaker Raoul Peck. A portion of the proceeds will go to Ciné Institute, Haiti's only film school, fostering a new generation of Haitian filmmakers.)

Profit and Nothing But!

Raoul Peck, 2001, 52 min

Who said that the economy serves mankind? What is this world where the wealthiest two percent controls everything? A world where this law of the strongest and the richest is imposed on the rest of humanity? Raoul Peck confronts these questions in this researched documentary, and contrasts them against the devastating reality of his native land, Haiti - "a country that doesn't exist, where intellectual discussion has become a luxury." Haiti’s GNP for the next thirty years is roughly equivalent to Bill Gates (current) fortune. The film's stark images of the real lives of the people provide a striking backdrop for talk of 'triumphant capitalism.' This is an extremely timely and relevant exploration of the profit motive and its consequences on our day to day lives, our history, and outlook for the future.

Q&A with Michelle Materre and author and scholar Darrick Hamilton.

Darrick Hamilton is an Associate Professor of Economics and Urban Policy at

Milano – The New School for International Affairs, Management and Urban

Policy, an affiliated faculty member in the Department of Economics at The New

School for Social Research, a faculty research fellow at the Schwartz Center for

Economic Policy Analysis, an affiliate scholar at the Center for American

Progress, and a research affiliate at the Research Network on Racial and Ethnic

Inequality at Duke University.  Also, he is a Co-Associate Director of the Diversity

Initiative for Tenure in Economics program, serving on the Board of Overseers

for the General Social Survey, and a Co-Principle Investigator of the National

Asset Scorecard in Communities of Color.

Tickets: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/1171747

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/415316845304300/

6:30pm

Lumumba: The Death of a Prophet

Raoul Peck, 1992, 69 min

Lumumba: The Death of a Prophet offers a unique opportunity to reconsider the life and legacy of one of the legendary figures of modern African history. Like Malcolm X, Patrice Lumumba is remembered less for his lasting achievements than as an enduring symbol of the struggle for self-determination. This deeply personal reflection by acclaimed filmmaker Raoul Peck on the events of Lumumba's brief twelve month rise and fall is a moving memorial to a man described as a giant, a prophet, a devil, and "a mystic of freedom”. It is a film about remembering, it is even more a film about forgetting. Raoul Peck meditates on his own memories as the privileged son of an agricultural expert working for the regime that displaced Lumumba. He examines home movies, photographs, old newsreels and contemporary interviews with Belgian journalists and Lumumba's own daughter to try to piece together the tragic events and betrayals of 1960. Yet, as this film testifies, Lumumba's prophecy will not be silenced until Africa achieves its second independence where the promises of the first can be fulfilled.

Q&A with Michelle Materre and filmmaker and curator Shola Lynch.

Shola Lynch is an award-winning American filmmaker who burst on the scene in 2004.  Her second feature documentary Free Angela and All Political Prisoners is a first hand account of the events that thrust Angela Davis into the national spotlight, from a young college professor to a fugitive on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list and premiered at the Toronto Film Festival. This complex film has challenged Lynch and showcases her progress as a promising director and producer. Shola’s first independent feature documentary, CHISHOLM ’72 – Unbought & Unbossed, about Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm’s historic run for president in 1972, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, aired on PBS’s POV series, and garnered two Independent Spirit Award nominations and a prestigious Peabody for excellence. Raised by a Canadian mother and a father from the tiny Caribbean island of Tobago, Shola grew-up in a multicultural and international environment in New York. From the ages of two to six, she regularly appeared on the classic children’s television series Sesame Street. Shola is also the Moving Image and Recorded Sound Curator of the Schomburg Center for Research In Black Culture in Harlem.

Tickets: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/1171772

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/415316845304300/