CU Cinema hosts Black History Month film series

Mandela: Son of Africa, Father of a Nation, the story of the South African president, will be shown at Cornell Cinema Feb. 18.

Cornell Cinema will present four new documentaries along with visits from two filmmakers in celebration of Black History Month. Screenings will be on Wednesdays in February at 7 p.m. in Willard Straight Theatre. Admission is $4.50; $4 for students, seniors and children under 12.

The series, cosponsored with Africana Studies and Research Center and Kappa Alpha Psi, opens Feb. 4 with All Power to the People: The Black Panther Party and Beyond. Director Lee Lew-Lee will present this insightful documentary about power and abuses of power in post-l950s America. Lew-Lee will introduce the film and answers questions immediately following the screening.

The documentary uses the history of the Black Panther Party to examine yesterday's politics of racism, violence, poverty, drugs and fear and their relevance in today's world. Lew-Lee, a former member of the Black Panther Party, uses rare archival footage, information from heavily censored FBI and CIA documents and interviews with political prisoners, federal agents and former members of the Civil Rights movement to reveal, according to Lew-Lee, "how the '60s might have been viewed had the era been reported from the perspective of a gifted, albeit radical, journalist of color." The film, however, is not a paean to the Panthers: "the contemptible megalomania, corruption, narcissism and excesses of the Panthers are exposed as dispassionately as are their inspiring self-reliance, idealism, vivaciousness and courage," wrote The Los Angeles Times.

Directed by Cornell alumnus Louis Massiah '76, W.E.B. Du Bois - A Biography in Four Voices is a documentary that chronicles the life of this important scholar and activist. The film, to be screened Feb. 11, is crafted around the reflections of four prominent African American intellectuals: scholar Wesley Brown, author Thulani Davis, the late author Toni Cade Bambara and poet and activist Amiri Baraka, whose commentary, added to archival footage, traces Du Bois' life from birth until his death, which occurred on the eve of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech at the 1963 March on Washington.

Mandela: Son of Africa, Father of a Nation, directed by Jo Menell and Angus Gibson, is the story of Nelson Mandela's harrowing struggle against apartheid, imprisonment and rise to the South Africa presidency. But the film goes beyond the television images to reveal an intimate portrait of the young Mandela, taking viewers from his rural childhood to his inauguration. The film, produced by Jonathan Demme, was nominated last year for an Oscar as best documentary. The film will be shown Feb. 18.

The series concludes Feb. 25 with a visit from documentarian Tony Buba, whose Struggles in Steel is the product of a unique collaboration with African-American steelworker Ray Henderson. Struggles in Steel documents the ugly history of discrimination against black steel workers and the heroic struggle for job equality. The film is cosponsored by the School of Industrial and Labor Relations and the Cornell Organization for Labor Action. Buba will introduce the film and hold a question-and-answer session following the screening.