The lecture in which Pat Thomas will participate, sponsored by the Northwest Film Forum on 1960s/1970’s underground African American films on Saturday March 23rd in Seattle has been changed from 8 pm to 6 pm – the NEW time for this free event is 6 pm !
After two trips to London (May and October 2012), several appearances on the BBC with stops at the University of Copenhagen, museums in Brooklyn, and book stores in Los Angeles and points in-between lecturing along the way – Pat Thomas, author of Listen, Whitey! The Sights and Sounds of Black Power 1965-1975, makes his first Seattle appearance in a year on Saturday March 23 at 6 pm as part of
Cinema Salon – hosted at The Project Room, 1315 East Pine Street, Capitol Hill, Seattle.
Free event
Join author Pat Thomas, Ron Johnson (founding member of the Seattle Black Panther Party) and Seattle University professor Gary Perry, as they discuss the legacy of the 1965 Watts Riots, the L.A. Rebellion and social justice, reviving a cultural, social, artistic and political framework now lost to memory.
The L.A. Rebellion unfolded against the backdrop of the recent Watts Uprising and the profound sociocultural reassessments it provoked, and amidst growing dissension among black political groupings, from the Panthers to Ron Karenga’s US movement (who had an infamous shoot-out on the UCLA campus in 1969). Deep in the background of the movies one discerns the distant rumblings of the Attica prison rebellion (the other Woodstock), the growth of Third World liberation movements to which many of these filmmakers felt themselves allied, the paranoia induced by the FBI’s CoInTelPro assault on black political organizations, and the ongoing cultural and musical explosions within America’s creative communities of color. Join author Pat Thomas (Listen, Whitey! The Sights and Sounds of Black Power 1965-1975), Seattle University professor Gary Perry and founding member of the Seattle Black Panther Party Ron Johnson as they discuss the legacy of Watts, the L.A. Rebellion, and social justice bringing back to life a cultural, social, artistic and political framework now lost to memory.
(The companion disc for Listen Whitey! was named one of the ten best CDs of 2012 by Time magazine.)
LANDMARKS OF BLACK CINEMA SCREEN IN SEATTLE
Northwest Film Forum’s L.A. Rebellion series celebrates legendary African-American filmmakers
Northwest Film Forum is proud to announce a major retrospective of African-American filmmakers during L.A. Rebellion (March 1 – 24, weekends), a film and conversation series which looks in- depth at a group of artists trained at UCLA in the 1960s and 70s, their response to the culture of their era and their lasting influence on fellow artists.
Supported by Humanities Washington, L.A. Rebellion invites audiences to join in a dialogue about race, history and cinema over four unique weekends of diverse films, many shown in new 16mm and 35mm prints. L.A. Rebellion also features cinema salons each weekend that are free and open to the public. These events include special guests in conversation, with speakers from the Radical Women’s Collective, the Langston Hughes African American Film Festival and Sistah Sinema, as well as visitors from further afield. A special highlight of the program is two evenings (March 8 & 9) with acclaimed filmmaker Charles Burnett, recipient of the MacArthur Foundation’s “genius grant” and lauded by The New York Times as “the nation’s least- known great filmmaker and most gifted black director.”
“The L.A. Rebellion film program offers audiences an opportunity to learn about a historically important link between the past and present situations of Black independent film in the United States,” says Zola Mumford, curator of the Langston Hughes African American Film Festival. “There are some parallels between contemporary independent Black filmmakers like Spike Lee and Ava DuVernay (Middle of Nowhere), who some independent film audiences may be more familiar with, and filmmakers trained at UCLA during the late 20th century.”
Film Forum Program Director Adam Sekuler says “L.A. Rebellion is our attempt to spotlight an important ‘new wave’ of African-American filmmaking for Northwest audiences. We believe cinema is an art form that can both mirror and provoke social change and political awareness, and the filmmakers of this movement demonstrate, in powerful ways, the issues of their time and the impact of their craft.”
L.A. Rebellion films screen Friday, Saturday and Sunday at 8 PM throughout the month of March. Regularly priced single film tickets cost $10 for general admission, $7 for students/seniors/children under 12, and $6 for Film Forum members, and can be purchased online at nwfilmforum.org or by phone via Brown Paper Tickets at 1.800.838.3006. A full series pass is available at deep discount, $55 general admission / $35 Film Forum members. Weekend à la carte passes are also available for $15 general admission / $10 Film Forum members.
