2016 was an incredible year for athletes of color in the Rio Olympics. From Gabby Douglas, Simone Biles, Nicole Manuel, Usain Bolt, Daryl D. Homer, Carmelo Anthony, Rafaela Silva, Ibtihaj Muhammad, Michelle Carter and a slew of other athletes that broke records, 2016 was one hell of an Olympic year! Olympic Pride – American Prejudice, directed by Deborah Riley Draper and narrated by Blair...
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What a film! I am a fan of any film that breaks with traditional portrayals of women and Leena Yadav‘s Parched certainly breaks with convention! The title alone paints an accurate picture. Parched: thirsty, longing for a drink, dry, dehydrated. Set in modern-day India, the film opens up on a desert landscape where the only significant colors available are in the apparel worn by thirty-two-year-old...
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Heroes don’t always wear capes, sometimes she wears a military uniform and works for the red cross. The Innocents is a film based on actual events of Polish nuns at a convent in Post WWII and a young French doctor who risks her everything to save them in their time of crisis. The film opens up in Poland, December 1945. Mathilde, brilliantly played by Lou...
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The Pan African Film Festival Awards Brunch took place in Los Angeles, California on Tuesday, February 16th. Filmmakers, cast and crew members and film lovers attended this marvelous event to pay tribute to the award winners that made the 2016 Pan African Film Festival unforgettable. Best Narrative Short Born With It Programmers Award: Short Narrative Reset Programmers Award: Documentary BaddDDD Sonia Sanchez...
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You ever go the movies, see a film and then take it home with you? Have it take up residence in your heart? Simmer in your mind? Trouble yet enliven sentiments you haven’t been in touch with for quite some time? I saw Chapter and Verse at the Pan African Film Festival in Los Angeles a few days ago and I haven’t been able to...
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The stars blazed at the screening of Miles Ahead at the Pan African Film Festival in Los Angeles, California! Miles Ahead is the biopic about the legendary Miles Davis. Don Cheadle wrote and directed this epic film and resurrects the spirit of Davis frame by frame. Mind blowing music, vibrant artwork, amazing lead actress, violence, love, retribution and a conundrum of...
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Agents of Change is as timely as it is compelling. In the age of the Black Lives Matter movement and college students of color demanding change on campuses all over the United States, the documentary film, Agents of Change, provides indispensable historical context for our present day youth uprisings. This film is directed and produced by Frank Dawson and Abby Ginzberg who were also...
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Trafficked (2015) Teaser Trailer from Sean Hodgkinson on Vimeo. Trinidad and Tobago has hit the big screen in the United States with intensity and zest! The film Trafficked made it U.S. debut at the 2016 Pan African Film Festival in Los Angeles, California. After debuting to sold out audiences in the Caribbean, the film’s director, Sean Hodgkinson, along with the...
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“I Live in South Central Los Angeles. Home of the drive thru and the drive-by,” says Ron Finley in his Ted Talk. This statement defines the conditions which propelled Finley, the Guerilla Gardener, and center of the film Can You Dig This, directed by Delilah Vallot and executive produced by John Legend. Can You Dig This is a solution driven documentary which focuses on...
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I could not have imagined a better shero! Lale, played by Günes Sensoy, the youngest of five sisters in Mustang, leads the pack in defying the new restraints set on the five girls by their grandmother and uncle who is determined to rule with an iron fist. After a harmless co-ed game at the beach with a few male classmates, the threat of a scandal...
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