Join us as we partner with the Critical Ethnic Studies Association to host the opening plenary at the “Decolonizing Future Intellectual Legacies and Activist Practices” Conference and a Civic Cinema program with the following free film screenings with discussions:
Thursday, September 19, 7:30-10:00p
Friday, September 20, 7:30-9:30p
A Lot Like You
UIC Forum, Room D
Join us for a screening of the Award-winning documentary, A Lot Like You followed by an in-depth Q&A and discussion with Director/Writer/Cinematographer Eliaichi Kimaro.
Eliaichi is a mixed-race, first-generation American with a Tanzanian father and Korean mother. When her retired father moves back to Tanzania, Eliaichi begins a project that evocatively examines the intricate fabric of multiracial identity, and grapples with the complex ties that children have to the cultures of their parents.
A Lot Like You raises questions about the cultures we inherit and the cultures we choose to pass down, and reveals how simply bearing witness to another’s truth telling can break silences that have lasted lifetimes.
América’s Home
UIC Forum, Room E
AMÉRICA’S HOME is the story of América “Meca” Sorrentini-Blaut, a feisty Puerto Rican woman in her 70’s, and her fight against developers intent on bulldozing her community and her family’s historic home. Her story is one of many tales of resistance against rampant greed, gentrification and displacement taking place all across the American Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and on the U.S. mainland.
This inspiring documentary is as much about displacement and empire as it is about the transformative power of the cultural arts, community and belonging.
Black and Cuba: Find Your Revolution/Encuentra Tu Revolución
UIC Forum, Room G
Black and Cuba follows a group of Yale African American Studies grad students as they band together and adventure to Cuba to see if revolution is truly possible. While filming their encounters with everyday Cubans from all walks of life, the travelers discover a history of solidarity, struggle and triumph over adversity that links Cuba with other Black communities around the world. They also witness how the embargoed island continues to struggle with racism and class.
This session will include a work-in-progress film screening of the documentary Black and Cuba, as well as a talkback with the film’s producer/director Robin J. Hayes, PhD.
Learn more about the conference.
Sponsored by The Institute For Research on Race and Public Policy at The University of Illinois At Chicago