The Retro Showcase takes place in the Spike Lee Screening Room LLC 122
SECTION: For Better or Worse The four films in this section testify that soul-mating ain’t easy.
SATURDAY, 10:30am-12:30pm
Film Title: The Wedding Proposal Length: 22:00 Min Date of Completion: 2005 Category: Documentary Director/Writer: Anjanette Levert Producer: Anjanette Levert
Synopsis: The Wedding Proposal is a personal documentary where the
filmmaker takes stock of her life style and romantic choices during the
year of her 35th birthday. The film examines the institution of
marriage, opinions and attitudes about marriage and marriage options
from the viewpoint of professional African-American women my age and
older.
Film Title: Brooklyn’s Bridge to Jordan Length: 20:00 Min Date of Completion: 2005 Category: Narrative Director/Writer: Tina Mabry Producer: Tina Mabry, M.R. Stiff, Jamiah Adams, Natasha Foster-Owens
Synopsis: After losing her life partner in a car accident, a woman with a buried secret must not only fight to keep the couple’s estranged teenage son from her partner’s intolerant brother, but also rebuild her troubled relationship with her son.
Film Title: A Spoonful of Sugar Length: 18:26 Min Date of Completion: 2003 Category: Narrative Director/Writer: Andrea Williams Producer: Marquette Jones, Rio Puertollano
Synopsis: A teen girl born with HIV decides to lose her virginity.
Film Title: Rituals Length: 25:00 Min Date of Completion: 1999 Category: Narrative Director/Writer: Carol Mayes Producer: Jeffrey Meyer
Synopsis: A loving wife, a cheating husband, and a helpful neighbor who has the potions to guide the erring husband back into the fold: these are the characters that comprise the engaging "Rituals". All seems promising until the spirits start to double-cross each other, and things don't exactly go according to plan.
SECTION: Family Matters The three films in this section recount the lessons of lineage.
SATURDAY, 1:00pm-3:00pm
Film Title: Cornbread Length: 11:48 Min Date of Completion: 2002 Category: Narrative Director/Writer: Del Hunter-White Producer: Lisabeth Kovetz Synopsis: There’s nothing better than the smell of fresh-baked cornbread.
Eight-year-old Jes Carter comes from a long line of cornbread
baking women. Each ingredient represents a member of the family.
Big Brother, Darnell, is cornmeal, “cause that boy got corn-mush for
brains.” Darnell’s twin, Denise, is flour, baking soda and milk, “cause
she jus’ mixes right in.” Middle sister, Vicki, is oil…”she’s slippery.
Mama is hot peppers. Daddy, the salt, is missing from the recipe.The three most satisfying pleasures in life: love, food and music all
come together in an eight-year-old girl’s journey to find the missing ingredient in her family.
Film Title: Tree Shade Length: 29:00 Min Date of Completion: 1998 Category: Narrative Director/Writer: Lisa Collins Producer:
Synopsis: Shame and embarrassment propel Savannah, a gifted high school student, to embark on a journey through space and time to witness the prison convictions of her great-grandmother Etta Mae, her grand-aunt Olive, and her aunt Denise. The fanciful and chilling tales of a delightfully vain maid in the 1920s , a hopelessly depressed nanny in the 1950s, and a mother frustrated during the holiday season in the 1980s, help Savannah reconcile her feelings about her own past in this touching coming-of-age story.
Film Title: Mute Love Length: 58:00 Min Date of Completion: 1999 Category: Narrative Director/Writer: Patrice Mallard Producer: Dorothy Thigpen, Patrice Mallard
Synopsis: Three generations of African American women try to mend their fractured relationships. Mavis is a recovering drug addict, clean for a year, but is struggling with an HIV diagnosis. She has not seen her mother Anna in seven years since she was kicked out of the house. The story is told from the perspective of Mavis’ seven year-old daughter.
SECTION: Life Inside and Out
The two films in this section reveal the effects of incarceration on women and their families.
SATURDAY, 3:15pm-4:45pm
Film Title: 25 years 2 Freedom Length: 22:00 Min Date of Completion: 2002 Category: Documentary Director/Writer: Nicholle LaVann Producer: Nicholle LaVann
Synopsis: An intimate interview with Betty Tyson, who spent 25 Years in prison for a crime she didn't commit.
Film Title: Beyond Bars: No Extended Embraces Length: 35:00 Min Date of Completion: 2000 Category: Documentary Director/Writer: Julia O’Farrow Producer: Julia O’Farrow
Synopsis: Beyond the Bars/No Extended Embraces presents portraits of six women who have a loved one in prison. This film focuses on the lack of intimacy that the women must endure while trying to maintain these relationships and explores how they remain committed in spite of the limitations. This moving documentary provides a voice for the women's stories that too often go unheard, and serves as a reminder that when a man is incarcerated he is more than just a number, he is someone's loved one.
SECTION: I Draw the Line The two films in this section challenge the notion of suffering silence
SATURDAY, 5:00pm-7:00pm
Film Title: NO! Length: 94:00 Min Date of Completion: 2006 Category: Documentary Director/Writer: Aishah Shahidah Simmons Producer: Aishah Shahidah Simmons, Tamara L. Xavier, Gail M. Lloyd
Synopsis: One out of three women in the United States will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime.Eleven years in the making, NO! unveils the reality of rape, other forms of sexual violence, and healing in African-American communities, through intimate testimonies from Black women victim/survivors, commentaries from acclaimed African-American scholars and community leaders, archival footage, spirited music, dance, and performance poetry. NO! also examines how rape is used as a weapon of homophobia.
Film Title: Gloomy Gyrl Length: 11:34 Min Date of Completion: 2004 Category: Narrative Director/Writer: Teri Burnette, Joseph Williams (poem) Producer: Teri Burnette, Beverly Burnette
Synopsis: Gloomy Gyrl is a stop-animated short film about a young woman who is trying to leave her mentally and physically abusive boyfriend.
SECTION: Large & In-Charge The two films in this section bow to the royal we
SUNDAY,
11:00am-1:45pm
Film Title: Sweet Mickey for President? Length: 22:50 Min Date of Completion: 2000 Category: Documentary Director/Writer: Mariette Monpierre/JP Brax Producer: Mariette Monpierre
Synopsis: He is controversial, bold and comedic. Haitian musical artist, Sweet Mickey, keeps you guessing whether he’s serious about running for the presidency of his country.
Film Title: Dressed Like Kings Length: 90:00 Min Date of Completion: Work-In-Progress Category: Documentary Director/Writer: Stacey Holman Producer: Stacey L. Holman, Xoliswa Sithole, Sharon Lomofsky,
Carey Schonegevel
Synopsis: Ten years after the end of apartheid, four men Buthelezi, Khoza, Mbhata and Mnguni, go dressed to the nines every Saturday night behind an ominous five-foot wall laced with ragged curls of barbed wire, a prison without bars. The George Koch Hostel For Men in Johannesburg is a prison without bars. It is here that they compete in a weekly fashion competition called ‘oswenka’ (meaning to swank). Forgetting the six-day work week, the mouths to feed and the rising cost of living, the men focus on encouraging the brother whose dream has been deferred and recruiting the neophyte whose feet have just touched big city soil. They imagine what they could become.
SECTION: Release The film in this section ministers the imperceptible wounds on our souls
SUNDAY,
2:00pm-4:00pm
Film Title: The Healing Passage Length: 90:00 Min Date of Completion: 2004 Category: Documentary Director/Writer: S. Pearl Sharp
Synopsis: Cultural artists, along with historians and healers, look at present day behavior that is connected to the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. For more than 300 years Africans were carried from their homeland, across the Atlantic Ocean ("The Middle Passage"), into chattel slavery in the Americas and the Caribbean. The residual impact of this African Holocaust still reverberates in the world today through psychological trauma, genetic memory, personal and community consciousness. The artists use music, dolls, dance, altars, spoken word, visual art and ritual to create paths to healing.
