season 1
Co-presented with American Public Television, hosted by Idris Elba, AfroPop: The Ultimate Cultural Exchange (Season One) was a series of six, one hour documentaries broadcast on public television starting in June 2008. To preview the season trailer, buy dvds, or watch shorts from the season, please visit BlackPublicMedia.org..
ABOUT THE HOST
Named one of People Magazine’s 100 Most Beautiful People, Idris Elba may be best known as the calculating de facto leader of a Baltimore drug empire in HBO’s critically acclaimed original series “The Wire,” but the British import is quickly making his mark as an actor to watch in Hollywood. Elba made his acting debut at the age of 19 as the lead in a play performed at London’s Red Lion Public Theater, gaining rave reviews for his performance. By the age of 24, Elba was a mainstay on British television, starring in some of the BBC’s best-rated shows “Dangerfield,” “Bramwell” and “Ultraviolet.” Elba’s burst onto the American scene also to rave reviews for his portrayal of Achilles in Sir Peter Hall’s off-Broadway production of “Troilus and Cressida,” considered one of Shakespeare’s more complicated plays. Shortly thereafter he landed a part on Dick Wolf’s acclaimed television series “Law and Order.”
Elba has starred in the critically acclaimed HBO Original Film “Sometimes In April” by critically- acclaimed director Raoul Peck; Columbia/Tristar Pictures’ “The Gospel,” directed by Rob Hardy; Tyler Perry’s dramatic feature “Daddy’s Little Girls” for Lionsgate films; co-starred opposite Hillary Swank in the Warner Bros. thriller “The Reaping” and the horror thriller “28 Weeks Later.” He recently starred in Ridley Scott’s “American Gangster” with Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe, and Tyler Perry’s hit holiday comedy “This Christmas.” Elba will next be seen in “Prom Night,” a re-make of the 1980 horror classic for Screen Gems.
ABOUT THE PRODUCER
Producer/Director Duana C. Butler is an independent filmmaker based in Harlem, U.S.A. Ms. Butler has gained production experience working with directors Leslie Harris (”Another Girl on the I.R.T.”), Kathe Sandler (”A Question of Color”) and Cheryl Dunye (”The Watermelon Woman”). She is currently in production for her documentary feature “Harlem Stories”, an exploration of the effects of gentrification in the communities of Harlem, USA.
In “Harlem Stories,” Butler seeks to reconcile her conflicted feelings about the gentrification of her neighborhood of Harlem, NYC. The film documents her journey through a divided Harlem as she weighs the pros and cons of a process that is revitalizing this historically underserved community while at the same time displacing longtime residents and threatening the survival of its culture. The gentrification of Harlem is rendering vulnerable the very community that it was meant to uplift and strengthen as this process pits the well-to-do against working class, black against white, native against foreigner, and neighbor against neighbor — in the battle for the area’s future.
ABOUT THE FILMS
Using an experimental narrative style, South African filmmaker Weaam Williams has infused her film with a texture and life that breathes with every cut. “Hip Hop Revolution” is first an exploration of the lives of a generation so touched by this genre and its culture that they are inspired to question, survive and conquer an unjust political system. Through the struggles of DJs, B-Boys, MCs and creative graffiti artists, “Hip Hop Revolution” depicts an element of hip hop so often forgotten – its power to inspire and catalyze change.
about Weaam Williams
Weaam Williams, is a published poet and short story writer. She studied a Bachelor of Arts Degree at the University of Cape Town, and then electronic media, camerawork and editing at the Cape Video Education Trust. ‘Hip-Hop Revolution’, is her second 48-minute documentary to be completed. The film has been a three-year labor of love. With ‘Hip-Hop Revolution,’ she has managed to combine her expertise as a poet/mc and filmmaker, using an experimental narrative style. “The feminine Divine” is her first feature documentary, which was aired on and commissioned by SABC (South African Broadcasting Corporation). The film explores the lives and journeys of three South African women who are natural healers. Weaam also works as an insert producer/director for the popular SABC magazine shows, “Street Journal” and “Noted.” She is a partner in a company called Shamanic Organic Productions, whose passion is to merge multi-media and healing.
In a wonderfully textured narrative style, African American filmmaker Regi Allen makes a sojourn to three West African countries to discover for himself the truth behind the myths that separate black identity in Africa from black identity in the Diaspora. With a critical lens often pointed at himself, Allen creates an intoxicatingly chaotic film that raises as many questions as it answers. Filled with deeply moving cinematic stills and 8MM footage, 10 Days In Africa is a song of love intended to heal many wounds, while weaving a complicated path to his firmer understanding of black identity.
about Regi Allen
Regi Allen is an editor, producer and media design artist, who is currently developing new ideas for television and alternative media. His Prior works include. “Planet Brooklyn, An Acid Jazz Film” for PBS’s Reel New York Film Series, hosted by Laurie Anderson, and a Planet Brooklyn (1996) video art series that won various film festival awards including The Community Choice Award for Best Experimental film, from the National Black Programming Consortium; he has also won Best Show Award, from Washington D.C.’s Rosebud Foundation for his work on the video art-poetry documentary Voices Against Violence (1994) His collaboration on Sandy Wilson’s “So Many Things To Consider” and Jane Wagner’s Girls Like Us”, were both selections of the Sundance Film Festival Short Film Series. “Girls Like Us” won Best Short for the series in 1996. His “art documentary”, tendaysinafrica (2002), featured in this series, has played on both continents. Regi lives in Washington DC, works as an editor at the Discovery Channel, and is a experimental hip-hop dj/vj at large.
“Welcome To Nollywood” is an artful and insightful documentary on the hustle and bustle of the quickly growing Nigerian movie industry, the third largest film producer in the world. With engaging interviews from leading industry professionals and intriguing behind-the-scenes footage, Meltzer’s depiction is entertaining, complex and a must-see for all who seek to know why this evolving industry is grabbing such large audiences around the world.
about Jamie Meltzer
Jamie Meltzer began his filmmaking career as a news stringer – shooting natural disasters, police chases and fires for the San Francisco Bay Area TV News. Off The Charts: the Song-Poem Story, his documentary feature film debut, was acquired by ITVS/PBS for the series “Independent Lens”. The film was broadcast nationally on PBS in February 2003. It has played at festivals worldwide, including the San Francisco International Film Festival and South by Southwest, and throughout rock clubs in the US (paired with such acts as NRBQ, Robbie Fulks, Edith Frost, and Cynthia Plaster Caster). His latest documentary feature, Welcom to Nollywood, investigates the popular and wildly successful Nigerian film industry. Mr. Meltzer teaches in the MFA in Documentary Film Program at Stanford University.
Freedom in South Africa after 1994 means the freedom for Tumelo and Dominique to express themselves in ways that genuinely baffle their parents. For these two female, hip-hop disc jockeys from rather conservative backgrounds, 1994 signalled the beginning of a journey to personal freedom. On the other hand, Tumelo’s endearingly nostalgic father sees this as the point at which the youth became aware of their rights, causing society’s values to crumble. In Mix, the tension between attaining personal freedom and satisfying family obligations is played out as an almost total communication breakdown between parents and daughter, between young and old, and between siblings. The tension is most palpable between parents’ expectations and the young women’s own values and ideals.
Tumelo and Dominique are forging new social realities – between black and white, between males and females, across vast stretches of land – which seem to leave the generation gap as wide as ever. Does the cost of achieving personal freedom mean the loss of family support and nurturing? Tumelo says young people embrace freedom as the right to be seen, to be heard and to be influential on their own terms. There are no easy answers, no pat solutions, in this documentary – just the bittersweet challenge of living large in a fractured, frenetic society.
about Rudzani Dzuguda
Rudzani Dzuguda grew up in Venda in the Northern Province of South Africa, an area of vibrant cultural activity. He attended Mbilwi High School there. He studied drama at the University of Durban-Westville, deciding thereafter to study television production at Technikon Natal. He moved to Johannesburg to work as a runner at Summit TV, later becoming a cameraman and editor. He worked on eTV news as a cameraman and then on e-Arts as a journalist. He recently formed a fi lm company, Dzuguda Productions, and Mix is his first film.
Elton is a boy of 13 who sings opera in Hermanus, a small seaside town in the Western Cape province of South Africa, popular with tourists for whale sightings. His love of opera music begins after his cousin gives him a tape by Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti. His passion leads Elton from performing solo stints at open-air festivals to opening acts for established opera singers from nearby Cape Town. Elton Nelson Nkenke Nkanunu is black, poor and one of six children. His unemployed mother often disappears, leaving his grandmother to soldier on valiantly, fighting off despair with both hands. Elton’s quest to become an acclaimed opera singer is set against the backdrop of his life as a young teenager. He and his opera-singing friends are harassed by authorities and beaten by police, who prefer to retain foreign tourists at the expense of local black street performers. Yet his irrepressible talent and love for music bubbles up in him constantly: he belts out Italian arias in the family kitchen, accompanied sweetly and then increasingly raucously by his baby sister; he joins a choir in Zwelihle township; he and his friends sing at school assembly. He jumps at the chance to get voice-training lessons from a music professor, and then from Mthunzi.
about Odette Geldenhuys
Odette Geldenhuys grew up in a small town in South Africa and studied at the University of Cape Town. She trained as a human rights and labour lawyer and worked with the prestigious SA law firm Cheadle, Thomson & Haysom. She has worked with the United Nations and the Legal Aid Board in South Africa. Her client list included farm workers, inner-city housing tenants and workers. In 2002, she decided to follow her passion and become a full-time filmmaker. Being Pavarotti is her first film as director.
“We Will Not Die Like Dogs” Dir. Lisa Russell, Nigeria, Uganda, Senegal, approx. 56 mins
“We Will Not Die Like Dogs” is a documentary film, which profiles AIDS activists from the four African countries of Nigeria, Uganda, Burkina Faso and Zambia. Providing intimately honest and provocative testimonies from individuals who are living face-to-face with the epidemic on a daily basis – including 2 HIV positive women who fight against stigma and discrimination, a doctor working tirelessly caring for HIV-infected children in the rural villages, and a reggae artist who uses his status amongst youth and the media to bring awareness to HIV/AIDS.
about Lisa Russell
Lisa Russell is an independent filmmaker whose background in humanitarian and international development work has inspired her to produce films about the health and well-being of our global society. Inspired by the late Jonathan Mann to pursue her Masters in Public Health in International Health in 1998, Lisa has since produced films and news segments that address issues such as obstetric fistula in Niger, food insecurity and HIV/AIDS in Malawi, AIDS activism in Africa, refugee resettlement in post 9/11 America, population and the environment in Ghana and Brazil’s controversial AIDS policy. While some of Lisa’s work has been broadcasted on public television (including PBS and Channel 4 London), most of Lisa’s films are tied into advocacy, fundraising or legislative efforts with UN and international agencies. She actively screens her films around the country at universities, conferences, festivals and hill briefings and has reached thousands of students, young people and others with her message about U.S. responsibility in global affairs. In September 2005, Lisa collaborated with Grammy-nominated artist Zap Mama to create “The WOMAN Tour” – a 3-week nationwide initiative of film screenings and musical performances to increase awareness of global women’s health. She is currently a teaching artist with Urban Word NYC, where she leads a workshop blending film screenings and open mics for young spoken word artists to initiate awareness and dialogue about social issues affecting today’s youth.
ABOUT NBPC
The National Black Programming Consortium (NBPC), a national, nonprofit media arts organization, is the leading provider of black programming on public television and the greatest resource for the training of black media professionals within the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). NBPC develops, produces and funds television and online programming about the black experience and, since its founding in 1979, has provided hundreds of broadcast hours documenting African American history, culture and experience to public television. For more on NBPC and its initiatives, visit http://www.nbpc.tv
ABOUT APT
With more than 10,000 hours of programming in its library, American Public Television (APT) has been a prime source of programming for the nation’s public television stations for 47 years, distributing more than 300 new program titles per year. APT milestones include distribution of the first HD series on public television and the 2006 launch of Create – the TV channel featuring the best of public television’s lifestyle programming. Known for its leadership in identifying innovative, worthwhile and viewer-friendly programming, APT has established a tradition of providing public television stations with program choices that strengthen and customize their schedules, such as Carreras Domingo Pavarotti in Concert, Winged Migration, Battlefield Britain, Globe Trekker, Rick Steves’ Europe, Great Museums, Jacques Pépin: Fast Food My Way, America’s Test Kitchen From Cook’s Illustrated, Broadway: The Golden Age, Lidia’s Family Table, California Dreamin’ – The Songs of The Mamas & the Papas, Rosemary and Thyme, P. Allen Smith’s Garden Home,, The Big Comfy Couch, Monarchy With David Starkey, and other prominent documentaries including AfroPop: The Ultimate Cultural Exchange Program, dramatic series, how-to programs, children’s series and classic movies.
