Langston Hughes African American Film Festival 2008

The power of motion pictures to effect change in society is not nurtured by the traditional methods of consumption. Instead, its’ true power of consciousness raising is inherent in the method of production. According to Paulo Freire, the author of Pedagogy of the Oppressed, there are two basic methods of teaching or pedagogy. One designed by the teacher for the student, in which it is assumed that the teacher has knowledge and the student is without knowledge. The alternative is a dialogical teaching method, with the area for study delineated in an interaction between teacher and student. The goal of this method is to perceive the processes, which create reality and the place of the participants in those processes. The challenge for filmmakers of the future is to find a way to bring about the involvement of oppressed people in the production process of the filmmaking experience. In the new millennium, filmmakers must come to know that the liberating power of film to change social consciousness is not in how a film is watched, but how it is created. Alonzo Crawford (MFA, Columbia University) has written and directed a number of documentary and dramatic short and feature-length films, notably: CROWDED (documentary; an exposure of conditions inside the Baltimore City Jail; 15 min., B/W, 1997). DIRT, GROUND, EARTH, AND LAND (docudrama; about urban housing and tenant rights, 117 min., color and B/W, 1983) and WALK ON WHITE NAILS (dramatic feature; a scathing look at interracial intimacy; 90 min., B/W, 1991). MORNING TATE is a dramatic short about the sedentary life of an elderly man, momentarily enliven by the spontaneity of youth, color, 30 min., staring Mr. Whitman Mayo, A.K.A., Grady from the TV sitcom, SANFORD AND SON). Current productions are A SEPARATE PLACE (documentary; about the schools built by P.S. DuPont in Wilmington, DE), WINTER WHEAT (35mm feature on domestic violence), CAN’T RESIST (35mm music-video), and GILA MONSTER: The Adventures of Adrian Manx, (35mm work in progress), THE MATING GAME: (35 mm short film based on the book by Jonathan Luckett).