CU Cinema presents four films in honor of Black History Month

In honor of Black History Month, Cornell Cinema presents four films, including "Sisters in Cinema," a documentary about African-American women filmmakers from the early 20th century to today. Courtesy of Cornell Cinema

In conjunction with the Africana Library, the Africana Studies and Research Center and Ujamaa Residential College, Cornell Cinema presents three new documentaries and one classic documentary in honor of Black History Month. Tickets for these shows are $6 general, $5 students and seniors, $4 Cornell graduate students and $3 all for Schwartz Center screenings. For more information call 255-3522 or visit http://cinema.cornell.edu.

First up is "The Murder of Emmett Till," by award-winning filmmaker Stanley Nelson, who was honored with a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship ("genius grant") in 2002. The film examines the 1955 murder of a black 14-year-old youth from Chicago who was visiting relatives in Mississippi, and the broad impact of his death, his funeral and the subsequent trial and acquittal of his accused killers. The film, screening Tuesday, Feb. 10, at 7:30 p.m. in the Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts, will be introduced by Africana studies professor James Turner.

"Tupac: Resurrection" celebrates the life of Tupac Shakur, one of the top-selling hip-hop artists of all time, who was murdered at the age of 25. This documentary, which screens Feb. 20 and 21 in Willard Straight Theatre, uses interviews and rare footage to explore Shakur's life viscerally and dramatically through his own words and music.

Stefan Sharf's classic 1964 documentary "Selma to Montgomery" will be screened as part of the 23rd Annual Black Maria Film and Video Festival on Feb. 22. The film reflects the influence of the great Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein, with whom Sharf studied and worked. Montage-like sequences reveal the vitality of the freedom marchers, who, together with Martin Luther King Jr., trekked across the South during a critical phase of the American Civil Rights Movement.

Finally, Yvonne Welbon's "Sisters in Cinema," a groundbreaking documentary about African-American women filmmakers from the early 20th century to today, will be shown Feb. 24 at the Schwartz Center. Welbon combines interviews, film clips and rare archival footage to give voice to the underrepresented and largely undocumented history of these pioneering artists.