See photos from this event here.
In celebration of Black History Month, the RLS-NYC along with Maysles Cinema present two critically acclaimed documentaries exploring the impact of the Black Radical Tradition in the US and globally.
All films taking place in person. Maysles Cinema, 343 Malcolm X Blvd (Between 127th and 128th Streets), Harlem.
Audre Lorde: The Berlin Years 1984 to 1992
79 Minutes, Germany, Dir, Dagmar Schultz
Friday, February 18, 2022
6:30pm Food & Drinks Reception, 7:30pm Film Start Time
Audre Lorde—The Berlin Years 1984 to 1992 explores a little-known chapter of the writer’s prolific life, a period in which she helped ignite the Afro-German Movement and made lasting contributions to the German political and cultural scene before and after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Lorde mentored and encouraged Black German women to write and publish as a way of asserting their identities, rights and culture in a society that isolated and silenced them, while she challenged white German women to acknowledge and constructively use their white privilege.
This documentary contains previously unreleased audiovisual material from director Dagmar Schultz’s personal archive, including stunning images of Audre Lorde off stage. With testimony from Lorde’s colleagues, students and friends, this film documents Lorde’s lasting legacy in Germany.
Discussants: Mayra A. Rodríguez Castro (author of Audre Lorde: Dream of Europe), Andreas Günther (Director of Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung‒New York Office)
W.E.B. Du Bois: A Biography in Four Voices
76 Minutes, USA, Dir. Louis Massiah
Wednesday, February 23, 2022
6:30pm Food & Drinks Reception, 7:30pm Film Start Time
The long and remarkable life of Dr. William Edward Burghardt (W.E.B) Du Bois (1868-1963) offers unique insights into an eventful century in African-American history. Born three years after the end of the Civil War, Du Bois witnessed the imposition of Jim Crow, its defeat by the Civil Rights Movement and the triumph of African independence struggles.
Du Bois was the consummate scholar-activist whose pathbreaking works remain among the most significant and articulate ever produced on the subject of race. His contributions and legacy have been so far-reaching, that this, his first film biography, required the collaboration of four prominent African-American writers. Wesley Brown, Thulani Davis, Toni Cade Bambara and Amiri Baraka narrate successive periods of Du Bois’s life and discuss its impact on their work.
Speaker: Louis Massiah, the film’s director
