February 22, 2006

Contact: Alka Gupta, (718) 488-1015

“Reel Sisters” Festival Celebrates Zora Neale Hurston’s Legacy
At Long Island University’s Brooklyn Campus, March 10-12
Gala Honors Lucy Anne Hurston and Filmmaker Julie Dash,
Weekend includes High Tea, Panels, Performances and Fashion Show

Brooklyn, N.Y. — The Reel Sisters of the Diaspora Film Festival & Lecture Series will explore the legacy of folklorist/writer Zora Neale Hurston on March 10-12 at Long Island University Brooklyn Campus’s Kumble Theater for the Performing Arts.

The Campus Media Arts Department and African Voices magazine are sponsoring the three-day event, whose theme is “Jump at de Sun: Exploring Zora Neale Hurston's Reel Life.” It kicks off with an opening night gala on March 10 at 6:30 p.m. with special tributes to award-winning filmmaker Julie Dash, director of “Daughters of the Dust” and “The Rosa Parks Story,” and Lucy Anne Hurston, niece of Zora and author of “Speak So You Can Speak Again: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston.”

The opening night gala also features performances by actress Kim Brockington, dancer Marlies Yearby, poet Liza Jesse Petersen and an excerpt from “BlackSouth: The Life Journey of Zora Neale Hurston,” produced by Kristy Andersen.

The weekend will include more than 30 features and shorts from around the world. Panel presentations on Hurston, current images of Black women in film and today’s arts patrons will be led by industry and indie veterans, scholars, critics and representatives from Women Make Movies and ITVS.

“High Tea and Hattitude” helps to close the final day of screenings and panels on March 12, with attendees treated to a millinery fashion show in Zora’s honor and invited to wear their own favorite hats.

For the past nine years, Reel Sisters of the Diaspora has dedicated itself to providing opportunities for diverse women filmmakers to showcase their films. “Reel Sisters is one of the few outlets that film lovers have to experience intellectually stimulating and empowering films by women from around the world,” says Reel Sisters co-founder Carolyn A. Butts.

Tea & Cinema, a free pre-festival event will take place on Saturday, February 25, at 1 p.m., at the Langston Hughes Community Library and Cultural Center at 100-01 Northern Blvd., in Corona, Queens.

For more information or tickets, please call the Kumble Theater at (718) 488-1624 or African Voices at (212) 865-2982 or visitwww.reelsisters.org. Three- and two-day passes are available as well advance tickets for groups and organizations. Reel Sisters of the Diaspora was co-founded by African Voices magazine and Long Island University’s Media Arts Department.

Long Island University opened its Brooklyn Campus in 1926, welcoming a diverse population at a time when other major universities enforced quota systems against racial and ethnic minorities. Located at the corner of Flatbush Avenue Extension and DeKalb Avenue in Downtown Brooklyn, the Campus is accessible to all major bus and subway routes and the Long Island Rail Road.

Reel Sisters 2006 will offer dramas, documentaries, romantic comedies and experimental films. Below is a small selection of films for 2006.

Film Title: Brooklyn’s Bridge to Jordan
Producers: Tina Mabry, M. R. Stiff, Jamiah Adams and Natasha Foster-Owens
Director/Writer: Tina Mabry
Category: Narrative Length: 20 min.
Synopsis: After losing her life partner in a car accident, a woman with a secret must not only fight to keep the couple’s estranged teenage son from her partner’s intolerant brother, but also rebuild her troubled relationship with her son.

Film Title: The Missing Peace
Director/Producer: Rachel Benjamin
Category: Narrative Length: 23 min.
Synopsis: The Missing Peace is a rites of passage tale about a 14-year-old girl, Larmort, whose name in English means death. She lives in a small village with her weary but wise grandmother, outside of the capital Port-Au-Prince, Haiti. It is 1991 and a coup has just occurred leaving the country in turmoil. Larmort and her grandmother rent a room to Emilie, a Haitian-American journalist, who solicits Larmor’s help in finding her missing mother. The Missing Peace is an adaptation of a short story from the book “Krik Krak?” by noted Haitian novelist Edwidge Danticat.

Film Title: Lavender: An Adaptation
Producer: Maryam Myika Day
Director: Derrick Williams
Category: Narrative Length: 29 min.
Synopsis: Lavender: An Adaptation is the story of young Maeve Taylor’s migration from a poor and lonely upbringing in rural Fall Springs, Virginia, to the gritty streets and glamorous nightlife of Harlem, circa 1948. Maeve heads north to the home of Josephine Mitchell, her only known relative, and immediately gets swept into a fast-paced life style. She is soon faced with the cruel realities of a new life, her sexual awakening, physical abuse and her own enduring human spirit in the struggle for the truth about her past.

Film Title: Prescription for Time
Producer: Nya Joy Payton and Keith McQuirter
Director: Keith McQuirter
Category: Narrative Length: 15 min.
Synopsis: Geraldine, an 81-year-old woman, is increasingly unable to care for herself and tries a new pill that promises to extend life by15 years but what’s it all worth? Prescription For Time is a touching story that questions the value of extending life in the face of losing independence.

Film Title: Shani Mootoo: My Dinner with Shani
Director/Producer: Frances-Anne Solomon
Category: Documentary Length: 24 min.
Synopsis: Shani Mootoo: My Dinner with Shani celebrates the launch of writer Shani Mootoo’s new novel “He Drown She in The Sea” with an intimate dinner party with her friends, filmmaker Richard Fung and writer Gamal Abdel-Shehid. Set in Canada, viewers are mesmerized by the preparation of an internationally spicy dish by the Caribbean author and the equally juicy conversation about the artist’s life.  Shani Mootoo is one of a 26-part documentary series called Literature Alive that profiles Caribbean-Canadian authors and follows the evolution of Caribbean fiction from the 1960s to the hip-hop generation.

Film Title: A Good Scratch is Hard to Find
Director/Producer/Writer: Lisa Fotedar Miller
Category: Experimental Length: 2 min.
Synopsis: A feminist comedy on female satisfaction. What better setting than an elevator?