February 2003 The 2003 Imagenation Film & Music Festival

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by Niija Kuykendall The 2003 Imagenation Film & Music Festival The 2003 IMAGEnation Film & Music Festival based in Harlem was a great avenue to view indy film examining various issues in the African Diaspora. This past weekend (Feb.23-25) in NYC, the gathering of filmmakers, critics and film buffs kicked off the year with more than 30 films and 3 educational panels. A highlight of the festival was the screening of acclaimed documentarian Stanley Nelson’s The Murder of Emmett Till. Nelson’s most recent work sheds light on the 1955 murder of a fourteen-year old boy who whistled at a white woman in Money, Mississippi. The powerful documentary, narrated by Andre Braugher, left viewers on the edge of their seats with a bad taste in their mouths while viscerally angry at the past and present race situation in this country. Utilizing old footage, painfully clear stills and abstract reenactment, the film put the pieces of “the first spark of the Civil Rights Movement” together with first-hand accounts of the national tragedy from the murdered boy’s family and eye-witnesses. The IMAGEnation crew also took the screening opportunity to recognize Mr. Nelson with one of their Revolution! Awards, also awarded to filmmaker Joe Brewster, actor Roger Guenveur Smith, producer Sherry Simpson Dean, Erykah Badu, Chuck D and Talib Kweli for their socially conscious work. Joe Brewster’s The Killing Zone also stands out in the festival as an excellent, edge of your seat psychological drama about a psychiatrist who witnesses the murder of the only father figure he knew by a twelve-year old boy. The psychiatrist, played with an amazing complexity and skill by the underrated Isaac De Bankole, must get through the struggle of finding his mentor’s killer and coming to terms with his past as a child soldier in a bloodied West Africa without losing his life and family. It must be noted that Sonja Sohn is fierce as the psychiatrist’s wife who must protect her child while her whole family fabric is on the verge of ripping to shreds, and the jazz soundtrack was perfectly scored to enhance the tension of the viewing experience. When The Spirits Dance Mambo is another amazing premiere by Dr. Marta Moreno Vega, founder and director of NYC’s Caribbean Cultural Center. The documentary was a fascinating exploration of African-based religions in the New World. Not only did the work cover the popular subjects of Caribbean syncretic religion but it also tackled key issues in debate in most Caribbean countries today, including the commercialization of spirituality, the role of spirituality in past and present resistance movements, the role of spirituality in music of all genres including hip hop, the immigration of Caribbean spirituality and its popularization in the U.S. and, specific to Cuba, the political dynamic of the country and the role it has historically and presently played on public spiritual expression. Although it was gratifying to see so many issues covered in one film, especially when the issues are so often ignored in favor of a more popularly sensationalized study, the work was a bit too long and broad for viewers who don’t already have a previous knowledge of these issues. The IMAGEnation Film & Music Festival was a great platform for socially conscious film goers and culture addicts to screen the new independent work and interact with the artists producing the work. Besides the three films mentioned in this article, there were many interesting shorts, feature films and documentaries screened that have not and will not get the attention they deserve in the current Hollywood exhibition monopoly.