Langston Hughes African American Film Festival 2008

The women of a 140-year-old African American church in rural Mississippi show strength in faith and in character.

Produced by Thurmon Green, a high school student at the Fairfax Magnet Center for the Visual Arts, Los Angeles, California. Teens learn to put down their electronic and digital devices and enjoy interacting with each other.

Seattle Premiere - On Feb. 4, 1999, four New York City Police officers killed African immigrant Amadou Diallo on his own doorstep in a hail of 41 bullets. The inhumanity of Amadou's death outraged African-Americans, so often the victims of such violence themselves, and people of all ethnicities took to the streets in protest. And yet, despite all the publicity, how many of those marching in Diallo's name could tell you what his native language was or place Guinea on a map? Jesse Thyne knew Amadou's history better than any other American. An exuberant Peace Corps volunteer from Pasadena, CA, Jesse was assigned to Amadou's home village in Guinea, West Africa. He'd been "adopted" by members of Amadou's family and lived in their house. While Amadou sold hats and gloves on a New York City street corner to save money for college, Jesse was learning to speak the local language and teaching Guinean children math. When Amadou died, people in Guinea turned to Jesse for an explanation. Jesse was present at Amadou's funeral, where he sat with the Diallo family and served as a translator for American journalists. In January of 2000, almost a year to date after Amadou's death, Jesse was killed in a brutal car accident on a Guinean highway. The taxi driver responsible for Jesse's death spent three years in a Guinean prison - a harsher-than-usual punishment. Amadou's killers walked free. Jesse's death, like Amadou's, was used as a rallying cry against endemic problems. While thousands of Americans protested Amadou's death, thousands of Guineans came together to march for road safety awareness in a country notorious for reckless driving. Like Amadou, Jesse was repatriated to his home soil for burial. Both families had premonitions and dreams foreshadowing the deaths of their sons, and both deaths had a profound spiritual impact on their nation's religious communities. Beyond examining the broad societal aspects of these events, the film leads us to a very personal truth: that the loss of any human life is equally tragic. Death of Two Sons shows the common humanity shared by these young men, their families, and their nations.

When life doesn’t turn out the way you expect it, sometimes the best thing you can do is laugh. Comedian Keith Price knows that lesson all too well, having encountered not only wildly enthusiastic cheers, but also less-than-supportive jeers in both his personal and professional life as an out African-American comic. The flamboyantly funny co-host of Sirius Radio’s OutQ in the Morning, Price is given the spotlight in EBONY CHUNKY LOVE: BITCH CAN’T GET A DATE, a documentary that takes a look at Price’s struggles to get noticed both in relationships and in his solo stand-up comedy career. Seattle filmmaker Lonnie Tristan Renteria’s inquisitive documentary uses clips of Price’s act, interviews, and analysis by scholars to offer perspectives on the issues of popular culture

Seattle Premiere - Elijah’s Liquor Store is set in Koreatown circa 1999. It’s the story of Elijah Gooden, a 43-year-old African-American man from Atlanta, Georgia. He graduated from Georgia Tech University and worked in corporate America before moving his family to Los Angeles to start his own business. He and his family experience culture shock and adversity as they struggle to build their livelihood in an area dominated by Asian-American business owners

Seattle Premiere - Co-produced, Directed & Written by Anastacia (Stacey) Tolbert & Annie Walsh - The GOT BREAST? documentary seeks to respond to the “epidemic” by destroying myths; perpetuating truth and examining the ways breasts and negative and positive body image affect women. Annie Walsh has adapted poetry and prose for the screen, and has written an original screenplay as well. Her first film, "T-Shirt Flirt," was inspired by the artwork of a rape survivor and was produced to benefit the Metropolitan Organization to Counter Sexual Assault. It has been exhibited at various venues in Kansas City, including the KC Filmmakers Jubilee and the Tivoli Theater. Anastacia (Stacey) Tolbert is a writer, Cave Canem Fellow (2007), journalist, workshop facilitator and playwright living in Seattle Washington. She is author of the poetry book, Baring My Soul, and the recipient of the 2004 San Diego Journalism Press Club Award for the article “War Torn.” Her poetry, fiction and nonfiction have been published in, Torch Clamor Magazine, Check the Rhyme, An Anthology of Female Poets & Emcees (Nominated for the 2007 NAACP Award), I Woke Up and Put My Crown On: 76 Voices of African American Women, Essence Magazine, Number One Magazine, The Nubian Chronicles, San Diego City Beat, The Pitch Weekly, Hair Piecez Anthology and The Source Magazine.

This documentary chronicles the life and times of the noted African-American historian, scholar and Pan-African activist John Henrik Clarke (1915-1998). Both a biography of Clarke himself and an overview of 5,000 years of African history, the film offers a provocative look at the past through the eyes of a leading proponent of an Afrocentric view of history. From ancient Egypt and Africa’s other great empires, Clarke moves through Mediterranean borrowings, the Atlantic slave trade, European colonization, the development of the Pan-African movement, and present-day African-American history

It’s 1950 and it’s a make or break weekend for Tyrone Purvis (Danny Glover), the proprietor of the Honeydripper Lounge. Deep in debt, Tyrone is desperate to bring back the crowds that used to come to his place. He decides to lay off his long-time blues singer Bertha Mae, and announces that he’s hired a famous guitar player, Guitar Sam, for a one night only gig in order to save the club. Into town drifts Sonny Blake, a young man with nothing to his name but big dreams and the guitar case in his hand. Rejected by Tyrone when he applies to play at the Honeydripper, he is intercepted by the corrupt local Sheriff, arrested for vagrancy and rented out as an unpaid cotton picker to the highest bidder. But when Tyrone’s ace-in-the-hole fails to materialize at the train station, his desperation leads him back to Sonny and the strange, wire-dangling object in his guitar case. The Honeydripper lounge is all set to play its part in rock n’ roll history.

Seattle Premiere - In 1832, an outrageous group of slaves find them selves emancipated in the wake of the plantation owner’s sudden death. Rather than run away or be claimed as property by their master’s relatives, they cover up his demise and maintain the illusion of “business as usual” under the noses of their racist neighbors. They defy conventional depictions of slaves by proving themselves intelligent, resourceful, literate, and organized. Features the voice of RuPaul.