Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

Renowned ‘Namibia’ director coming to PCC

Photos and story by James Hill

The 19th annual Cascade Festival of African Films, held in honor of Black History Month at Portland Community College Cascade Campus, will run from Feb. 6 through March 7.

Every year the college features more than 20 films from or about the African continent that are brought to Portland by a small but dedicated group of local volunteers. All screenings of the films are free and open to the public. The films in the festival, which attracted more than 5,000 filmgoers in 2008, come from every region of the African Continent.?The event will open with the adventure film, “Za?na: Rider of the Atlas,” directed by Bourlem Guerdjou of Morocco, on Friday, Feb. 6, at McMenamins Kennedy School (5736 N.E. 33rd Ave.). Screenings will be at 7 and 9 p.m.

The renowned African-American director Charles Burnett will be this year’s featured director. He will present his epic film, “Namibia: The Struggle for Liberation,” starring Carl Lumbly, Danny Glover, Joel Haikali and Obed Emvula, as the centerpiece film on Friday, Feb. 20, at the Hollywood Theatre (4122 N.E. Sandy Blvd.). Burnett, Lumbly, and the film’s editor, Edwin Santiago, will be in attendance along with Portland Mayor Sam Adams.

“Charles Burnett is one of the country’s foremost African-American directors, a truly great filmmaker,” said Michael Dembrow, PCC composition and literature instructor, film festival organizer and state representative. “His 1977 film, ‘Killer of Sheep,’ was designated a national treasure.”

Burnett, a native of Vicksburg, Miss., is a MacArthur Award-winning American filmmaker. His parents moved to California during the “Great Migration,” in search of jobs in the booming defense industry and better living conditions, including the chance to vote. Burnett grew up in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles and eventually earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the University of California, Los Angeles. Burnett’s work concentrates on the lives of the African-American middle class, which are seldom treated in films. He made his first feature, “Killer of Sheep,” in 1977 while a graduate student at UCLA. In 1990, the film was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”

Burnett’s work also includes the 1998 ABC two-part mini-series, “Oprah Winfrey Presents: The Wedding,” starring Halle Barry and Lynn Whitfield and the 1999 ABC telepic, “Selma, Lord, Selma,” about the 1965 civil rights marches in Alabama. In 1997, the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival honored Burnett with a retrospective, “Witnessing for Everyday Heroes,” presented at New York’s Walter Reade Theater of Lincoln Center. He is also the winner of the American Film Institute’s Maya Deren Award, and one of the very few people ever to be honored with Howard University’s Paul Robeson Award for achievement in cinema.

“His films take us to the heart of the African-American experience with honesty and great beauty, free from the stereotypes that usually plague Hollywood films,” added Dembrow. “We are extremely honored to bring Charles Burnett to Portland to show his new film from Namibia.”

2009 Cascade Festival of African Films Highlights

Kevin Arkadie will introduce and discuss his documentary film, “FESPACO,” a behind-the-scenes look at the Pan-African Film Festival in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. The event is seen through the eyes of six filmmakers from the African Diaspora. It will be shown at 2 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 7, in the Moriarty Arts and Humanities auditorium, Cascade Campus (705. N. Killingsworth St.)

Alrick Brown will open the Thursday evening documentary series with his film, “Death of Two Sons.” The screening will be at 7:30 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 12 at the Moriarty auditorium at Cascade. The documentary examines the death of Amadou Diallo, the Guinean immigrant who was shot to death by New York City policemen, and the death of Jesse Thyne, an American Peace Corps volunteer who lived and worked with Diallo’s family in Guinea.

The StudentFest Matinee on Thursday, Feb. 19 also will present Burnett’s “Nightjohn,” at noon and will be followed by “Bab’Aziz – The Prince Who Contemplated His Soul” by Tunisian director Nacer Khemir at 2:30 p.m. These also will be shown at the Moriarty auditorium at Cascade.

Family Film Day on Saturday, Feb. 21, will feature the animated film, “Azur and Asmar: The Princes’ Quest,” directed by Michel Ocelot of “Kirikou and the Sorceress” fame at 2 p.m. It tells an enchanting tale that has captivated the imaginations of children and adults alike. Baba Wagu