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Stonewall Uprising
Posted in Gender/Sexuality, History on May 23, 2012
President Obama has come out in favor of gay marriage, and Federal Courts have ruled California’s ban on same sex marriage violates the Constitution.
Seems hard to believe that in 1969 people in New York City were being arrested, convicted and losing their jobs, for being gay. “It was the Rosa Parks moment,” says one man. June 28, 1969: NYC police raid a Greenwich Village Mafia-run gay bar, the Stonewall Inn. For the first time, patrons refuse to be led into paddy wagons, setting off a 3-day riot that launched the Gay Rights Movement.
“Told by Stonewall patrons, reporters and the cop who led the raid, Stonewall Uprising recalls the bad old days when psychoanalysts equated homosexuality with mental illness and advised aversion therapy, and even lobotomies; public service announcements warned youngsters against predatory homosexuals; and police entrapment was rampant. At the height of this oppression, the cops raid Stonewall, triggering nights of pandemonium with tear gas, billy clubs and a small army of tactical police. The rest is history.” – Karen Cooper, Director, Film Forum
“The most thorough exploration….of what came to be known as gay pride.” Stephen Holden, The New York Times
Thursday, June 21, 2012
6:30 PM Doors open| 7:00 PM Film screening
8:20 PM Discussion facilitated by ADFS
Free
Off and Running
Posted in Age/Youth, Gender/Sexuality, Race, Religion on April 9, 2012
With white Jewish lesbians for parents and two adopted brothers — one mixed-race and one Korean—Brooklyn teen Avery grew up in a unique and loving household. But when her curiosity about her African-American roots grows, she decides to contact her birth mother. This choice propels Avery into her own complicated exploration of race, identity, and family that threatens to distance her from the parents she’s always known. She begins staying away from home,starts skipping school, and risks losing her shot at the college track career she had always dreamed of. But when Avery decides to pick up the pieces of her life and make sense of her identity, the results are inspiring. Off and Running follows Avery to the brink of adulthood, exploring the strength of family bonds and the lengths people must go to become themselves.
“A unique and very American coming-of-age story that delves into the psyche of race through a fresh and careful dissection of a family’s struggle.”
-Tribeca Film Festival
Thursday, May 3, 2012
6:30 PM Doors open, free snacks, coffee and tea | 7:00 PM Film screening
8:20 PM Community discussion facilitated by ADFS
Free
Salaam Dunk!
Posted in Age/Youth, Class, Gender/Sexuality, International, Race, Religion on February 28, 2012
Basketball is much more than a game in SF filmmaker David Fine’s stirring documentary about an Iraqi women’s basketball team at the American University of Iraq — Sulaimani (AUIS) in Kurdistan. For the young women on the team, most of whom have never touched a basketball or been allowed to play any sport, it is a blissful release from the realities of a war-torn nation.
They come from all ethnicities and sects — Arab, Kurd, Christian, Sunni, Shiite — but the joy they discover in playing and working with the young American man who coaches them reveals an Iraq united in a way we don’t see in the headlines.
David Fine will attend the screening, and be there to fill you in on how Salaam Dunk was made, and what’s happened since.
Thursday, March 29, 2012
6:30 PM Doors open and informal reception | 7:00 PM Film screening
8:20 PM Discussion with filmmaker David Fine
Free
Piedmont Annual Celebration of the Life and Teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
This is a special event, please note the different location. All are welcome.
Date and Time
January 16, 2012, 12:00 pm – 3:00 pm
Location
Piedmont Community Hall, 711 Highland Avenue, Piedmont, CA 94611 (Map)
Event Details
- Music by Oaktown Jazz
- Presentations by Piedmont Unified School District students
- Potluck Lunch: People are encouraged to bring a dish to share that reflects their heritage
(side dish, salad, dessert or bread).
- We will show a new film about Dr King at about 1:30pm: “At the River I Stand”
For more info contact LoisCorrin@gmail.com or call 510-420-1534.
::
AT THE RIVER I STAND
The 1968 Memphis Sanitation Workers Strike and the Assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King
Produced and directed by David Appleby, Allison Graham and Steven Ross
This moving documentary recounts the two months leading to Martin Luther King Jr.’s death in 1968, after he had come to Memphis to support the strike of 1300 Memphis sanitation workers.
Spring 1968 in Memphis marked the dramatic climax of the Civil Rights movement. At the River I Stand skillfully reconstructs the two eventful months that transformed a strike by Memphis sanitation worker into a national conflagration, and disentangles the complex historical forces that came together with the inevitability of tragedy at the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
This 58-minute documentary brings into sharp relief issues that have only become more urgent in the intervening years: the connection between economic and civil rights, debates over strategies for change, the demand for full inclusion of African Americans in American life and the fight for dignity for public employees and all working people.
Accidental Hero: Room 408
Winner of the Audience Award for Best Documentary, New York International Film & Video Festival
Press Release
“America’s embattled public education system provides kindling for numerous negative news stories—school shootings, drugs, gang violence. Accidental Hero: Room 408 provides a powerful exception to those stereotypes. Following an East Bay public high school teacher and his class, the film tells the story of Tommie Lindsey, an extraordinary man who is changing lives by introducing his students to a little known academic sport called “forensics.” Accidental Hero has important messages about the tremendous potential that young people from diverse backgrounds can realize when they are given the support of good teachers and ample educational tools.”
(56 minutes) by Terri DeBono and Steve Rosen
Welcome to the world of forensics: students train and compete in oratory, debate, and dramatic interpretation of events. By letting students draw on their cultural backgrounds – sometimes pent up pain or anger – the teacher channels emotions into spellbinding performances in this engrossing documentary. Film contains strong language.
Thursday, January 19, 2012
6:30 PM Reception with light snacks | 7:00 – 8:00 PM Film Screening
8:00 – 9:00 PM Community Discussion
Free
Writ Writer
Writ Writer portrays the historic conflict that emerged in the 1960s when Texas prisoners petitioned the courts for relief from inhumane prison conditions. Focusing on the story of self-taught jailhouse lawyer Fred Arispe Cruz, the film uncovers his legal battle, his collaboration with poverty law attorney Frances Jalet, and his successful litigation for the right of Texas prisoners to assist one another with lawsuits. His litigation paved the legal path for Ruiz v Estelle, the most comprehensive court-ordered state prison reform litigation in U.S. history.
Thursday, December 1, 2011
6:30 PM Reception | 7:00 – 8:00 PM Film Screening
8:00 – 9:00 PM Community Discussion
Free
Silver Gavel Award | Documentaries
Paths of the Displaced
Posted in Class, International, Race on September 24, 2011
“Paths of the Displaced tells three kinds of stories: the first are the stories of five Sudanese teenage refugees and the tremendous hardships they endured to survive war and genocide and escape to the U.S. The second are their stories of survival and adaptation…in Lincoln [Nebraska]. The third is the storyteller’s tale, about [Natalia] Ledford herself, an Anglo-American woman and high school senior at the time the film began, who decided that the stories of her classmates were important enough that the world should know them. Each of these stories is compelling on its own; together they form an irresistible tapestry.” ~ Hanna Day Woodruff, starcityblog.com
Thursday, October 27, 2011
6:30 PM Reception | 7:00 – 8:00 PM Film Screening
8:00 – 9:00 PM Community Discussion
Free
Path of the Displaced
Cruz Reynoso: Sowing the Seeds of Justice
Posted in Class, History, International, Race on August 27, 2011
Cruz Reynoso: Sowing the Seeds of Justice chronicles the life of a man who gave Ronald Reagan fits by fighting for immigrants’ rights, and helped Cesar Chavez improve the lives of millions of farm workers. It will engage students and inspire thought and discussion in a wide range of courses in ethnic and Latino studies, American studies and history, sociology, law and jurisprudence, public policy, and contemporary social problems. It was produced by award-winning filmmaker Abby Ginzberg and narrated by noted actor and writer Luis Valdez.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
6:30 PM Reception | 7:00 – 8:00 PM Film Screening
8:00 – 9:00 PM Community Discussion
