Langston Hughes African American Film Festival 2008

The civil and clan wars that ravaged Liberia from 1989-2003 accounted for over 250,000 deaths, one million displaced persons, and a malignancy of unspeakable atrocities often committed by child-soldiers, that left the country in a dire state of hopelessness. Out of this despair rose a group of women; mothers, grandmothers, aunts and daughters, led by Leymah Gbowee, a mother who dared to dream that the wars could end. This film tells their extraordinary story. Through simple testimonials and footage from the conflicts, it weaves a story of hope that stands as a testament to the power of women and peace.

A girl's lyrical mediation on her independence and her strained relationship with her single mother & other family

A deep exploration of the spiritual, historical, and political life of the Afro-Cuban community of Santiago de Cuba. Rhythm of Fire is a collection of the most important moments of the Festival of the Caribbean which takes place every year in Santiago de Cuba and celebrates the African heritage in the Caribbean. The main character is Cimarron, the fugitive slave, who symbolically reinterprets the history of the freed slaves and whose historical strength forms the foundation of the Cuban and Antilles culture.

Seattle Premiere - Jah Bull and Baboo are two Rastafarians that sell LP records in a colourful old car through the countryside towns of Jamaica. By chance their favourite and well known radio broadcaster, Farmer Roots, hitches a ride with them in an emergency while trying to take his sick girlfriend to the hospital. Jah Bull and Baboo don't believe in western medicine because of their Rastafarian beliefs and 'convince' their passengers to seek the help from the bush doctor Bongo-Hu. Getting to the doctor turns out to be much more difficult than they expected and all kinds of adventures happen along the way… Born in 1978, Silvestre Jacobi is an Argentinian director with an abiding interest in music who has previously worked in the documentary medium. He graduated as a lawyer in 2002 and then studied cinematography in New York. In 2001 he teamed up with Hassen Balut to make the highly acclaimed "Candombe." "Roots Time" is his first feature and won the Best Film Award at the 2006 Portobello Film Festival

Seattle Premiere - Tate Bradley, a 25-year-old African American man, attempts to commit suicide. Surviving the ordeal, he isolates himself in his apartment--hiding from the world. The significant players in his troubled life come to check on him. With each visit, Tate is forced to face his demons. A psychological study of the strangulation and alienation of the scars left by the tragedy of child abuse and family disintegration. It bears an impact that will remain with the viewer for some time. But this is not a story of defeat and hopelessness. Rather, it is the story of hope and gathering the courage to face one’s reality and institute the process of healing. It is never too late! . Mature themes. Suitable for age 18 and over. An Oakland, California native, Leon Lozano earned his MFA at the University of Southern California - School of Cinematic Arts. Lozano’s work has aired on the Showtime and BET Cable Networks, and has received a nomination for an NAACP Image Award in the category of Outstanding Television Movie, Mini-Series, or Dramatic Special.

Seattle Premiere - In 1989, a collective of young artists gathered weekly at a small health food store in South Central LA called "The Good Life.” Their mandate? To explore and expand the musical boundaries of hip hop. THIS IS THE LIFE tells the little known story of a group of teenagers, who revolutionized hip hop by innovating the very rhyme patterns, melodic concepts and lyrical styles used by many of today's biggest rap stars. While their innovations have yielded billions of dollars for the recording industry, the Good Life emcees have toiled in relative obscurity in the United States. But much like their jazz heroes of a bygone era, these street poets have garnered a rabid and musically sophisticated fan base abroad, with a cult-like following in Germany, Australia, France, England and Japan. This feature-length documentary, directed by former Good Life emcee Ava DuVernay, chronicles the rise and fall of an unusual family of artists, while examining their obstacles to commercial success. They all took different paths, but remain connected by the music they made, the alternative hip hop movement they developed, and their worldwide influence on the art form. THIS IS THE LIFE “Meet The Movement” www.goodlifelove.com

This documentary film tells the story of a New Deal Resettlement Community in Tillery, North Carolina from slavery to present. Through archival film and video footage, historical photographs, and narratives of Tillery’s elders, shows how seeds of independence planted in the pre-Civil Rights era took root in movements for racial justice in the 1950’s, and grew into fights against present day environmental racism and economic marginalization

Gilda Sheppard's documentary film "Women Together as One" was the first ever short film selected for showing by Fest Afrique 360 at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival in France. "Women Together as One" focuses on work Sheppard did with Liberian women refugees who live at the Buduburam Refugee Camp in Ghana, West Africa. She worked with the women to organize a women’s collective and design classes for economic sustainability (computer literacy, adult literacy, cosmetology, catering, sewing and tie and dye workshops) and school scholarships for their children. In this piece we see the women, strong and powerful, full of laughter and life, breaking media "victim" stereotypes at the rate of 30 frames per second. The women give horrid testimonies of rape and war however break the frame through their active "fighting against poverty" for their reentry into society after the trauma of war. Gilda Sheppard is a member of the faculty at The Evergreen State College Tacoma Program where she teaches sociology, media literacy and cultural studies courses. She is also a filmmaker whose documentary films have been screened in Berlin Germany, Ghana West Africa, throughout USA and recently at eh Fest Afrique 360 at the Cannes Film Festival in France, Sheppard will speak to the growing population of refugees using her work in the Buduburam camp and provide stories of her one woman camera documentation of this process.

Yari Yari Pemberi – Documentary chronicling the international conference, sponsored by the Organization of Women Writers of Africa, Inc., brought together fiction writers, poets, performers, visual artists, journalists, scholars, archivists and activists all over the world who are involved in globalization projects. Maya Angelou, Maryse Conde, Jayne Cortez, Paula Giddings, Octavia Butler, Edwidge Danticat, Sonia Sanchez, and Alice Walker were just some of the many conference participants.. Filmmaker talkback after the screening. Don’t miss this rare opportunity to hear the legendary Jayne Cortez discuss her work as an author, artist, and filmmaker.