Monday, November 11, 2013

DIRECTOR SHOLA LYNCH TALKS BRINGING THE REVOLUTIONARY'S STORY TO THE BIG SCREEN

Dear Friends, Maryland Friends of the People's World Online, in partnership with the Humanistic Studies Department of the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), invites you to view the internationally acclaimed movie "Free Angela and All Political Prisoners" on Thursday, November 14 at 7 p.m. in MICA's Graduate Studies Center, 131 W. North Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21201, located between Maryland Avenue and Howard Street. The movie will be introduced by Jarvis Tyner, Vice-Chair of the Communist Party USA and long-time friend of Angela's, with Q & A afterwards. The Center will open at 6 p.m. for book sales by Red Emma's Book Store, which will include books by Angela Davis and others on prison struggles. Tickets ($10 general; free to students with student ID) may be purchased/reserved at http://freeangela.eventbrite.com/. Proceeds will benefit the 2013 People's World fund drive. Please see the attached event flier and check us out (and share) on Facebook :https://www.facebook.com/events/588171361247668/. For more information call 410-433-3269. You don't want to miss this gripping film with its lessons for today's struggles. Sincerely, Margaret Baldridge for the MD Friends of the People's World Online http://www.ebony.com/entertainment-culture/documentary-revisits-angela-davis-fight-for-freedom-337#axzz2kNtJDxrR SEPTEMBER 2012 ENTERTAINMENT & CULTURE/ TV & Film Documentary Revisits Angela Davis' Fight for Freedom [INTERVIEW] DIRECTOR SHOLA LYNCH TALKS BRINGING THE REVOLUTIONARY'S STORY TO THE BIG SCREEN By MAKKADA B. SELAH ED TA Free Angela & All Political Prisoners Poster. Free Angela and All Political Prisoners, a new film by Shola Lynch, in which Angela Davis, 68, speaks openly for the first time in forty years about the tumultuous events of her twenties, debuted at this week’s Toronto International Film Festival. Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith, who introduced the doc at the festival, just announced that their Overbrook Entertainment has partnered with Jay-Z’s Roc Nation as executive producers of the documentary about the scholar who came to embody Black power and Black radical feminism. It’s a wonder that Davis’ trial hasn’t been brought to the big screen before. Two months after the 26-year old was fired from her assistant professorship at UCLA because of her affiliation with the Communist Party and her vocal support for three California inmates known as "the Soledad Brothers," the State accused her of being involved in a plot to help famed Soledad Brother George Jackson, a Black Panther and communist intellectual break out of San Quentin prison. On August 7, 1970, George Jackson's brother and Angela’s personal bodyguard, 17-year-old Jonathan Jackson initiated the kidnapping of a superior court judge, assistant district attorney and three jurors in open court in San Rafael, California. He demanded the release of George and the other Soledad Brothers. Jonathan provided arms to three convicts, who assisted him in the takeover. The resulting shootout left Jonathan, two of his accomplices and the judge dead, and the assistant district attorney badly wounded. Angela Davis had purchased guns used in the shooting. When she hears she is wanted by police, she leaves the state traveling in wigs to disguise her iconic afro. She goes from Los Angeles to Chicago to Miami –––the FBI finally tracked down and arrested her on October 13, 1970 at a Howard Johnson's in New York City. Free Angela is Shola Lynch’s second film. She won a Peabody Award in 2006 for her documentary Chisholm '72: Unbought And Unbossed, which chronicled Shirley Chisholm's historic 1972 run for the White House. EBONY spoke with Lynch about her newest project. EBONY: There’s something about Angela Davis that makes her able to connect with people. She’s so educated. She’s so articulate. Do you think her extensive education played a big part in the drama of her criminal trial in 1971, which is portrayed in your film? LYNCH: I don’t think it was just her education...What does somebody do when faced with enormous pressure from power? How do you respond to that? And her choices are clear and they’re documented. And I think what’s difficult about her is she doesn’t apologize for her choices. And she appears to be so strong. And in 1970, there just were not that many women, let alone women of color, who projected that persona in the world. Read more at EBONY http://www.ebony.com/entertainment-culture/documentary-revisits-angela-davis-fight-for-freedom-337#ixzz2kNtgfK8k Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218. Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/ "The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs

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