Haile Gerima - Outsider Hollywood: Social Activism and Cinematic Art | The New School

The New School ( http://www.newschool.edu) for Media Studies (http://www.newschool.edu/mediastudies) presents a retrospective Film Screenings of Haile Gerima. Outsider Hollywood: Social Activism and Cinematic Art. Established by a bequest from the late Dorothy Hirshon, a trustee of The New School for 61 years, this annual event promotes excellence and education in the filmmaking arts. The theme of the eighth Hirshon Film Festival is working outside the Hollywood system while creating socially conscious, cinematic film.

Called one of the independent cinemas chief chroniclers of the African-American and African Diaspora[n] experience[s], by Variety, Haile Gerima is a distinguished independent filmmaker who has served as a professor of Film at Howard University in Washington, DC, since 1975. Haile is perhaps best known as the writer, producer, and director of the acclaimed 1993 film Sankofa, which the New York Times called poetic and precisely detailed. The film, a historically inspired dramatic tale of African resistance to slavery, has won international acclaim including first prize at the African Film Festival in Milan, Italy; Best Cinematography at Africas premier Festival of Pan African Countries (FESPACO); and a nomination for the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film festival. In addition, the film captured the imagination of huge audiences across the United States. In doing so, it defied the notion that signing with mainstream distributors was the only option for filmmakers wanting to reach a wide audience.

Guided by an independent philosophy, Gerima practiced an innovative strategy in distribution whose success remains unprecedented in African-American film history. Gerimas earlier works include the films Harvest: 3000 Years, which Martin Scorsese described as having, a particular kind of urgency which few pictures possess; and Bush Mama. Gerima is releasing his eleventh cinematic production and seventh dramatic film, TEZA, which means morning dew in Amharic. The film tells a story of hope, loss, and reminiscence through the eyes of an idealistic young intellectual who has been displaced for many years from his homeland of Ethiopia. Reflecting on the effects of the fall of Emperor Haile Selassie on Ethiopias history and society, TEZA also focuses through a wider lens on the ways political upheaval and social change have impacted cultures and nations across the African Diaspora. Due to the discourse on critical issues it engenders and its exquisite visual tableau, TEZA is an unparalleled work of social activism and cinematic art.

This years director-in-residence is producer, director, and writer Haile Gerima. He introduces a retrospective of his work. A panel discussion with Gerima, author and journalist Jill Nelson, cultural critic and Eugene Lang College faculty Margo Jefferson; moderated by Media Studies and Film assistant professor Michelle Materre follows the screening. The evening concludes with a reception.

April 23, 2010