JAMES BALDWIN at 100. Lights, Camera, Baldwin. Celebrating a century of James Baldwin (1924 – 1987): the brilliant thinker, writer, and activist whose prescient essays, plays, and novels continue to shine a searing light on American racism 35 years after his death.
Each screening will be followed by a post-show audience discussion with Charmaine Simpson, founder of Black History Studies and Hakeem Kazeem, film maker, writer and host of the club and performance night Batty Mama, promoting queer black and brown bodies.
I Heard It Through The Grapevine
Two decades after the Civil Rights Movement, James Baldwin revisits historical places stretching from the South to the North – from Selma and Birmingham, Alabama to Atlanta, Georgia and on to the battleground beaches of St. Augustine, Florida and the Dr Martin Luther King Memorial in Washington, D. C. On this journey down memory lane, he engages in conversations with friends, activists and fellow writers such as Amiri Baraka, Oretha Castle Haley and Chinua Achebe, reflecting on the past events that sparked the fight against racial segregation, the attacks on churches, racist police brutality and the arbitrary injustices which the Black population had to endure. Questioning their own legacy, these luminaries look at the present and how little has actually been achieved in the wake of the movement, and we, the audience are equally encouraged to reflect on our own era. Dick Fontaine skilfully weaves archival materials into the accounts, making his film at once a poignant historical document and highly relevant today in the context of the Black Lives Matter movement.
“As much an essay as a documentary… It’s a harsh truth, precisely and artfully rendered.” – Darren Hughes, Filmmaker Magazine
Filmmaker: Dick Fontaine
Born in 1939, he began his film career in 1963 as a co-founder of Granada Television’s World in Action Series and is credited with having introduced the methods of direct cinema to British television. Dick Fontaine has more than 40 films to his name, many of them documentary portraits of musicians. From 1995 to 2012, he headed the Documentary Department at the National Film & Television School in Beaconsfield, England.
THIS IS NOT TO BE MISSED
This event will take place on THURSDAY 12TH SEPTEMBER 2024 at 19:00.
The screening will be held at The Lexi Cinema, 194b Chamberlayne Road, Kensal Rise, London, NW10 3JU. Located 3 minutes from Kensal Rise Overground Station. Located 10 mins from Kensal Green and 15 mins from Queens Park on the Bakerloo Line. Via Bus, the Okehampton Road stop is right outside the Lexi Cinema, served by 52, 452, 6, 187, 302. Free on-street parking in local streets.
Please book your ticket(s) here https://thelexicinema.co.uk/TheLexiCinema.dll/WhatsOn?pg=0&sp=8151173
