Langston Hughes African American Film Festival 2009

After 44 years, North Philadelphia resident Gloria Westbrooks recounts the summer she was taken, along with 32 other adolescent girls, to an abandoned Civil War stockade where she was malnourished and mistreated for six-weeks after participating in a Civil Rights demonstration in Americus, Georgia in 1963. She and four other survivors recount their terrifying captivity in vivid and shocking detail.

The Eastern Cape city of Port Elizabeth is home to a group of dynamic young artists dedicated to the upliftment of their community through cultural activism. Masizkhe explores the collective identity of these activists through their ideologies and diverse initiatives. Rushay and Imotep, big brothers of the scene, "emcee" a narrative which explores the principles and relevance of Hip Hop, black consciousness and history to the youth's continuing struggle for freedom. The film features the music, spoken word and art of: Shades of Blackness, Usiba Noncwadie, fokofpolisiekar, JBux, Ghetto Youth Uprising, Abantu, Sindiwe Magona, Kipchoge Kirkland, Reunited Siblings, Malibongwe, Spoken Word and Artist Movement, and Kun-I Chang. Local filmmakers Scott and Angela Macklin in attendance

A love story of bikes and one-night stands told through two African-American twenty-somethings dealing with issues of class, identity, and the evolving conundrum of being a minority in rapidly gentrifying San Francisco-a city with the smallest proportional black population of any other major American city. "Part mood piece, part awkward love story, and part sociological exposé, San Francisco writer-director Barry Jenkins' debut feature is some kind of wonderful. This is the rare film that is as thoughtful as it is sensual, as attuned to personal epiphanies as it is to social injustice. "-Michael Fox, SF Weekly

As the USA prepared for WWII, Blacks were recruited for military and civilian service jobs. This film presents the contributions made by Black scientists and technicians during WWII. Join us for a post-screening discussion about African Americans in the engineering, technology, and defense fields.

Four teenage girls set out to make a film about post-Katrina New Orleans, exploring issues of race, class, and government response. As they work complete their film, 'Not Seen on TV', they decide that wounds can heal, and that hope and community can survive a storm.

Obara, a hunter, lives in a town experiencing a famine. When he finally finds food, a group of hungry merchants appears. Willhe share? What would you do?

Prince of Broadway is the story of Lucky and Levon, two men whose lives converge in the underbelly of New York's wholesale fashion district. Lucky, an illegal immigrant from Ghana, makes ends meet by soliciting shoppers on the street with knock-off brand merchandise. Levon, an Armenian-Lebanese immigrant, operates an illegal storefront with a concealed back room where counterfeit goods are showcased to interested shoppers. Lucky's world is suddenly turned upside down when a child is thrust into his life by a woman who insists the toddler is his son. While Lucky copes with his new domestic dilemma, Levon struggles to save a marriage that is falling apart. The seedy side of the wholesale district is revealed through a journey that continually confronts the interplay between what is fake and what is real.

Danielle's job as script coordinator for a popular TV drama changes when the producers plan to shoot an ill-conceived "urban" episode.

Nat Turner believes that he is destined by God to deliver his race from bondage and leads the bloodiest slave revolt in United States history.