April 6, 2010
The 4th Annual Multicultural Studies Film and Speaker Festival
Presented by the Webster University Multicultural Studies Committee
Thursday April 8th, 7:30pm
Winifred Moore Auditorium
Prodigal Sons follows three siblings — a transgender woman, a gay man, and their adopted brother — back to their small town in Montana for a high school reunion, where a powerful story of an entire family’s transformation unfolds. Returning home, filmmaker Kimberly Reed hopes for reconciliation with her long-estranged adopted brother, Marc. But along the way she uncovers stunning revelations, including his blood relationship with Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth, intense sibling rivalries and unforeseeable twists of plot and gender that force them to face challenges no one could imagine. Reed's rare access delicately reveals not only the family's most private moments, but also an epic scope as the film travels from Montana to Croatia, from jail cell to football field, from deaths to births and commitments of all kinds. This unflinching look at identity and the past challenges us to wonder if we can ever truly become someone new.
Director Kimberly Reed will be speaking at the screening.
Friday April 9th, 7:30pm
Winifred Moore Auditorium
In 1970, the town of Charleston, Mississippi, allow black students into their white high school but refused to integrate the senior prom. Twenty-seven years later, Charleston resident and Academy Award winning actor Morgan Freeman offered to finance the prom under the condition it be integrated. His offer was ignored. In 2008, Freeman made the offer again. This time the school board accepted, and history was made. Prom night traces the tumultuous events leading up to Charleston's first integrated prom through intimate conversations with students, families, and faculty members and Freeman himself. As the film unfolds, we delve deeply into heated race issues that tear apart this tiny community. Ultimately, Prom Night in Mississippi captures a big moment in a small town, where hope finally blossoms in black, white, and a whole lot of taffeta.
Director Paul Saltzman will be speaking at the screening.
Saturday/Sunday April 10th & 11th, 7:30pm
Winifred Moore Auditorium
This feature documentary follows the progression of the Muslim Punk scene from its imaginary inception in a novel written by a white-convert named Michael Muhammad Knight to a full-blown, real-life scene of Muslim punk bands and their fans. When he was 17, Michael Knight left his mother's home in Rochester to study Islam at a Pakastani madrassa. It was his first act of rebellion. Years later, burned out on the demands of religious dogma, Mike rebelled once more by penning a Muslim Punk manifesto called the Taqwacores. His work of fiction struck a chord with young Muslims around the world and before long, real-life Taqwacore bands were creating a scene. This film follows Michael and his band of Muslim punks as they journey across the U.S. and Pakistan, transforming their worlds, their religion and themselves through the spirit of Taqwacore.
Director Omar Majeed will be speaking at the screening on Saturday April 10th.
The 2010 Multicultural Studies Film Festival is made possible by the Multicultural Studies
Committee, with the generous support of the College of Arts & Sciences, School of Communications, Multicultural Center and International Student Affairs, Human Rights Institute, Behavioral and Social Sciences Club, LGBTQ Alliance, and the Webster Film Series.
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