- Oct 20, 2007
- 256
- 6
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/23/movies/23dias.html
A Universe of Black Film
By FELICIA R. LEE
Published: November 23, 2007
The African Diaspora Film Festival has grown each year since its genesis in a kitchen-table conversation between a couple of film fanatics frustrated by the shallow pool of black films in New York. Starting today the 15th edition of the festival will offer something for just about anyone interested in the global black experience: 102 films from 43 countries in a 17-day feast of documentaries, comedies, musicals, dramas and romances.
Reinaldo Barroso-Spech and Diarah N’Daw-Spech, the married couple behind the mom-and-pop venture, had also been casting about for “something important” they could do together, Ms. N’Daw-Spech recalled recently. After coming to New York from Paris in the 1980s and “not being able to see the same breadth and depth of films we saw in Paris, we figured there was a niche, a need,” she said. The couple, who are Columbia University graduates, chatted with a reporter in a lounge at Teachers College in between last-minute festival preparations.
“The festival has been our kid,” added Ms. N’Daw-Spech, whose day job is as a financial director at a Teachers College center. “The kid is an adolescent now. When we started out, we had no experience, no connections. We knew nobody. We got some film festival catalogs and started calling people.”
That first festival in 1993 featured 24 films at the Cinema Village in Greenwich Village and attracted about 1,500 people over one week. This year the couple (who also distribute some of the festival films on DVD and video) expect some 7,000 people from tonight through Dec. 9 at six locations throughout the city. The films come from countries including the United States, Jamaica, Haiti, Portugal, Angola, Germany and Britain.
Forty-five films will receive some sort of premiere at the festival: 23 are being shown for the first time in New York and 22 for the first time in this country. Along with the screenings are panel discussions on themes like “African leaders” and “slavery in cinema,” question-and-answer sessions with the filmmakers and even some parties.
The New York premieres include John Sayles’s new film, “Honeydripper,” the tale of a rural Alabama lounge owner’s efforts to save his business, starring Danny Glover, Charles S. Dutton, Stacy Keach and Mary Steenburgen. “El Cimarrón” by the Puerto Rican director Iván Dariel Ortiz tells a story of love and slavery in Puerto Rico in the 19th century. “Youssou N’Dour: Return to Goree,” directed by Pierre Yves-Borgeaud, is a documentary about a jazz concert on the island of Goree in Senegal featuring Mr. N’Dour, the renowned Senegalese singer, to commemorate all the Africans stolen from there and brought to the New World as slaves.
The opening night features the United States premiere of “A Winter Tale,” directed by Frances-Anne Solomon (a Trinidadian working in Canada), a drama about a group of six black men in Toronto who form a support group in the aftermath of the accidental shooting of a 10-year-old boy.
Like many of the filmmakers Dr. Barroso-Spech and Ms. N’Daw-Spech come from places where different cultures flowed together.
Dr. Barroso-Spech was born in Cuba of Haitian and Jamaican descent and received his doctorate from Columbia, where he teaches a course on using film in language education. His mother began taking him to films when he was a child in Havana, he recalled. “With the Castro revolution many Africans came to Cuba and with the Africans, film,” he said. “Those films were very important in my formative years. It created in me an understanding of the value of art and culture as a way to uplift me — and not just me, but a whole population.”
Ms. N’Daw-Spech is of French and Malian heritage. Together, the two now comb film festivals around the world for black images that speak about both common human experiences and the particulars of race.
They would not disclose the festival’s budget, but they get support from sources that include the New York State Council on the Arts and Teachers College. Ms. N’Daw-Spech, who earned her M.B.A. from Columbia, does the administrative work; her husband does the programming. They have one assistant and hire temporary help for the festival. For the last several years highlights from the festival have been shown at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. They also take some of the films to Chicago, Jersey City, Washington and Curaçao for smaller versions of the festival.
Warrington Hudlin, president of the Black Filmmaker Foundation, estimated that there are more than 20 black film festivals in the United States, exposing audiences of all backgrounds to films they would otherwise miss. The African Diaspora Film Festival, he said, is one of the most important and is distinctive in including so many films from outside this country.
“Cinema of color is still marginalized,” Mr. Hudlin said. “These films are our refuge. They have a critical importance in our community as reliable venues for access to the artistic evolution in black cinema.”
As the number of small art houses continues to shrink, it has become even harder to find independent, smaller black films, Ms. N’Daw-Spech said.
“We want to keep doing everything we’re doing, but at a larger scale,” she said. “The best part is that we know that audiences share what we feel.”
A Universe of Black Film
By FELICIA R. LEE
Published: November 23, 2007
The African Diaspora Film Festival has grown each year since its genesis in a kitchen-table conversation between a couple of film fanatics frustrated by the shallow pool of black films in New York. Starting today the 15th edition of the festival will offer something for just about anyone interested in the global black experience: 102 films from 43 countries in a 17-day feast of documentaries, comedies, musicals, dramas and romances.
Reinaldo Barroso-Spech and Diarah N’Daw-Spech, the married couple behind the mom-and-pop venture, had also been casting about for “something important” they could do together, Ms. N’Daw-Spech recalled recently. After coming to New York from Paris in the 1980s and “not being able to see the same breadth and depth of films we saw in Paris, we figured there was a niche, a need,” she said. The couple, who are Columbia University graduates, chatted with a reporter in a lounge at Teachers College in between last-minute festival preparations.
“The festival has been our kid,” added Ms. N’Daw-Spech, whose day job is as a financial director at a Teachers College center. “The kid is an adolescent now. When we started out, we had no experience, no connections. We knew nobody. We got some film festival catalogs and started calling people.”
That first festival in 1993 featured 24 films at the Cinema Village in Greenwich Village and attracted about 1,500 people over one week. This year the couple (who also distribute some of the festival films on DVD and video) expect some 7,000 people from tonight through Dec. 9 at six locations throughout the city. The films come from countries including the United States, Jamaica, Haiti, Portugal, Angola, Germany and Britain.
Forty-five films will receive some sort of premiere at the festival: 23 are being shown for the first time in New York and 22 for the first time in this country. Along with the screenings are panel discussions on themes like “African leaders” and “slavery in cinema,” question-and-answer sessions with the filmmakers and even some parties.
The New York premieres include John Sayles’s new film, “Honeydripper,” the tale of a rural Alabama lounge owner’s efforts to save his business, starring Danny Glover, Charles S. Dutton, Stacy Keach and Mary Steenburgen. “El Cimarrón” by the Puerto Rican director Iván Dariel Ortiz tells a story of love and slavery in Puerto Rico in the 19th century. “Youssou N’Dour: Return to Goree,” directed by Pierre Yves-Borgeaud, is a documentary about a jazz concert on the island of Goree in Senegal featuring Mr. N’Dour, the renowned Senegalese singer, to commemorate all the Africans stolen from there and brought to the New World as slaves.
The opening night features the United States premiere of “A Winter Tale,” directed by Frances-Anne Solomon (a Trinidadian working in Canada), a drama about a group of six black men in Toronto who form a support group in the aftermath of the accidental shooting of a 10-year-old boy.
Like many of the filmmakers Dr. Barroso-Spech and Ms. N’Daw-Spech come from places where different cultures flowed together.
Dr. Barroso-Spech was born in Cuba of Haitian and Jamaican descent and received his doctorate from Columbia, where he teaches a course on using film in language education. His mother began taking him to films when he was a child in Havana, he recalled. “With the Castro revolution many Africans came to Cuba and with the Africans, film,” he said. “Those films were very important in my formative years. It created in me an understanding of the value of art and culture as a way to uplift me — and not just me, but a whole population.”
Ms. N’Daw-Spech is of French and Malian heritage. Together, the two now comb film festivals around the world for black images that speak about both common human experiences and the particulars of race.
They would not disclose the festival’s budget, but they get support from sources that include the New York State Council on the Arts and Teachers College. Ms. N’Daw-Spech, who earned her M.B.A. from Columbia, does the administrative work; her husband does the programming. They have one assistant and hire temporary help for the festival. For the last several years highlights from the festival have been shown at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. They also take some of the films to Chicago, Jersey City, Washington and Curaçao for smaller versions of the festival.
Warrington Hudlin, president of the Black Filmmaker Foundation, estimated that there are more than 20 black film festivals in the United States, exposing audiences of all backgrounds to films they would otherwise miss. The African Diaspora Film Festival, he said, is one of the most important and is distinctive in including so many films from outside this country.
“Cinema of color is still marginalized,” Mr. Hudlin said. “These films are our refuge. They have a critical importance in our community as reliable venues for access to the artistic evolution in black cinema.”
As the number of small art houses continues to shrink, it has become even harder to find independent, smaller black films, Ms. N’Daw-Spech said.
“We want to keep doing everything we’re doing, but at a larger scale,” she said. “The best part is that we know that audiences share what we feel.”
