13th Annual Black Panther Party Film Festival
Presented by the New York Black Panther Party Commemoration Committee
Taking place in the Maysles Cinema from October 1st and 2nd and October 8th and 9th (10/1, 10/2, 10/8 and 10/9).
The 13th Annual Black Panther Party Film Festival is dedicated to Point 5 of the Panther Platform:
WE WANT DECENT EDUCATION FOR OUR PEOPLE THAT EXPOSES THE TRUE NATURE OF THIS DECADENT AMERICAN SOCIETY. WE WANT EDUCATION THAT TEACHES US OUR TRUE HISTORY AND OUR ROLE IN THE PRESENT-DAY SOCIETY.
Films are available on a sliding scale at $12 for general admission, $8 for students & seniors & $4 for unemployed or underemployed. Proceeds go directly to supporting the Black Panther Party. Additional donations can be made for commissary for BPP Political Prisoners and aid to their families when needed.
Films Include:
Making The Impossible Possible (Tami Gold and Pam Sporn, 2021, 33 min.)
Friday, October 1st at 7PM.
Making The Impossible Possible tells the story of the student-led struggle to win Puerto Rican Studies at Brooklyn College, CUNY, in the late 1960’s. Puerto Rican, African American and other progressive students and faculty forged a powerful alliance and together changed the face of higher education with the founding of one of the first Puerto Rican Studies departments in the nation.
Making The Impossible Possible is a production of APREE - Alliance for Puerto Rican Education and Empowerment. For more information, go to APREE.
Takeover (Emma Francis-Snyder, 2021, 37 min.)
Saturday, October 2nd at 4PM
Takeover explores the twelve historic hours on July 14, 1970, in which fifty members of the Young Lords Party stormed the dilapidated Lincoln Hospital in the South Bronx, drove out their administrative staff, barricaded entrances and windows, and made their cries for decent healthcare known to the world. They raised the Puerto Rican flag atop the building, as well as a banner reading “The People’s Hospital” - a nom de guerre still used today. Through archival footage, seamless reenactments, and modern-day interviews, we follow the Young Lords’ resistance against institutions curated by wealth and white supremacy, and their fight for the most basic of human rights: the right to accessible, quality healthcare.
Dope is Death (Mia Donovan, 2021, 62 min.)
Saturday, October 2nd at 7PM
Dope is Death is the story of how Dr. Mutulu Shakur, stepfather of Tupac Shakur, along with fellow Black Panthers and the Young Lords, combined community health with radical politics to create the first acupuncture detoxification program in America in 1973 - a visionary project eventually deemed too dangerous to exist in America.
This film will be preceded by: Analyze, Study & Move: The Survival Programs of the Black Panther Party (360 Collective (Grant Brooks, Isaac Castelaz, Imari Dukes), 2021, 33 min.)
A conversation with filmmaker Mia Donovan and subject Cleo Silvers will follow the screening.
Conversations: The Black Radical Tradition (Edwian Stokes, 2019, 120 min.)
Friday, October 8th at 7PM
Conversations: The Black Radical Tradition offers a first-hand account through examinations on African-American life in the United States in the 20 and 21st century and brings together a catalog of some of the most compelling seasoned civil rights activists, local activists, foot soldiers, scholars, writers, thinkers, and performers ever to tackle their fields of labor. Conversations is an original documentary film. From ship revolts to brown communities, from abolition to civil rights, from Black Power to Black Lives Matter, the prime objective has to be strategic action to retain the dignity and humanity of Black people. Watch the interview portraits and get a piercing snapshot of where this country has been and where it is headed.
A discussion with filmmaker Edwian Stokes will follow the screening.
Judas and the Black Messiah (Shaka King, 2021, 126 min.)
Saturday, October 9th at 4PM
FBI informant William O’Neal (LaKeith Stanfield) infiltrates the Illinois Black Panther Party and is tasked with keeping tabs on their charismatic leader, Chairman Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya). A career thief, O’Neal revels in the danger of manipulating both his comrades and his handler, Special Agent Roy Mitchell (Jesse Plemons). Hampton’s political prowess grows just as he’s falling in love with fellow revolutionary Deborah Johnson (Dominique Fishback). Meanwhile, a battle wages for O’Neal’s soul. Will he align with the forces of good? Or subdue Hampton and The Panthers by any means, as FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover (Martin Sheen) commands?
The Murder of Fred Hampton (Howard Alk, 1971, 89 min.)
Saturday, October 9th at 7PM
The FBI/Police assassinated Black Panther leaders Fred Hampton & Mark Clark in a pre-dawn raid on December 4th, 1969. This film documents the scene of the crime and also includes original footage of Fred Hampton speeches and activities of The Black Panther Party in Chicago.
This film will be preceded by a screening of But You Can’t Kill A Revolution (King Downing, 12 min.)
