NEWS

CHAPEL HILL – How different filmmakers have explored and imagined the black diaspora will be the theme of a film festival through April 13 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

UNC’s Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History will present 10 programs in its "Diaspora Festival of Black and Independent Film," all free and open to the public. Some programs will feature more than one film, with shorts, feature-length films and documentaries among the offerings.

"These screenings highlight an integral part of the Stone Center’s mission, to encourage and support the critical examination of African-American and African Diaspora cultures through open discussion, dialogue and debate," said Dr. Joseph Jordan, center director and professor of African-American studies.

The festival, "Diasporic Bodies/Diasporic Spectacles," began Monday with "February One." Additional titles, times, dates and places will be:

· "American Exile," 3:30 p.m. Feb. 24, 319 Greenlaw Hall: Story of Pete O’Neal, a former Black Panther leader who has been in exile in Africa for 30 years.

· "Bontoc Eulogy," 7 p.m. March 2, 08 Gardner: Archival photos and contemporary action scenes tell the story of 1,100 Filipinos, including a Bontoc Igorot warrior named Markod, who were brought to the United States as a living exhibit.

· "The Edge of Each Other’s Battles: The Vision of Audre Lorde," noon March 16, Lenoir Hall: A tribute to the late poet Lorde, a black feminist lesbian who wrote several poetry collections and "The Cancer Journals," on her experience with mastectomy and its aftermath. The book won the American Library Association’s Gay Caucus Book of the Year Award in 1981. The film examines Lorde’s social vision through her 1990 "I Am Your Sister" conference.

· "Rocks With Wings," 5 p.m. March 22, location to be announced: The film traces the journey of the Lady Chieftains, a women’s high school basketball team from the small, impoverished Navajo community of Shiprock, N.M., and their coach, the late Jerry Richardson, an African-American high school basketball star from Texas. The team won their state AAA championship in 1992, under Richardson, and again in 2002.

· Special independent shorts night, 7 p.m. March 23, film auditorium, Frank Porter Graham Student Union: "Stolen Moments," a documentary on today’s hip-hop movement; and two fictional entries, "White Like the Moon," in which a Mexican-American mother insists that her daughter, 13, bleach her skin to enhance her chances in an Anglo society; and "Innocent," on police detective Harry Ryan as he uncovers greed and corruption on a police force.

· "Ota Benga" and "Boma Tervuren," 7 p.m. March 30, film auditorium, Frank Porter Graham Student Union: Two stories, first, of Ota Benga, from the Mbuti people of the Congo, brought to the United States by explorer Samuel Verner to be an anthropological attraction at the St. Louis World’s Fair of 1904. The second film is the saga of 267 Congolese men, women and children brought to Brussels to be exhibited at the 1897 World’s Fair; many of disease and exposure to cold.

· "Afro-Punk: The Rock and Roll Nigger Experience," 7 p.m. April 6, 08 Gardner: The film explores racial identity, loneliness, exile, inter-racial dating and black power within the punk scene.

· "Sabado Morning" and "Every Child is Born a Poet: The Life and Work of Piri Thomas," 7 p.m. April 13, film auditorium, Frank Porter Graham Student Union: The first film tells a fictional story of a Puerto Rican police officer who moonlights as a slam poet and is shot because of the color of his skin. The second concerns the life and work of writer and poet Piri Thomas, known for "Down These Mean Streets," an autobiography beginning with his youth in New York’s Spanish Harlem.

For more information, call the center at 919-962-9001 or visit the Web site, www.unc.edu/depts/stonecenter.

- 30 -

Contact: Jennifer Ramirez, 919-962-9001, jramirez@email.unc.edu

News Services contact: L.J. Toler, 919-962-8589, laura_toler@unc.edu