The 2020 Harlem International Film Festival (Hi) today announced official selections for its 15th edition taking place virtually September 10-13. The film festival opens with two films aimed squarely at current issues with Lanie Zipoy’s thriller about a documentarian haunted by the Harlem teen’s murder he caught on film in THE SUBJECT, set as the Opening Night selection, followed by Gavin Guerra’s documentary on voter suppression, LET THE PEOPLE DECIDE, selected for the Friday Night Spotlight. Saturday’s Centerpiece Screening selection will be Charles Mudede’s THIN SKIN, the film adaptation of Ahamefule Olue’s Off-Broadway musical hit play, with the film festival wrapping things up by celebrating the Centennial celebration of the Negro Leagues with the Closing Night selection of Craig Davidson’s documentary ISLAND OF BASEBALL.
The four-day film festival which has become an underrated showcase of relatively undiscovered international cinematic gems and local New York filmmaking talent will put the NYC spotlight on 94 film presentations (32 features, 47 shorts, 9 webisodes, 5 music videos, and 2 VR/360 projects) representing over 25 countries. World premieres include Davidson’s ISLAND OF BASEBALL, as well as Rich Gold’s IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF MAD DOG COLL, Daniel Gabriel’s MOSUL, Bahati Best’s THE PATTERSON: ANOTHER BRONX TALE, Sakina Samo’s WAITING, and 5 short films as well.
Harlem International Film Festival’s Program Director, Nasri Zacharia, said. “Like many film festivals, we have made the decision to present our slate of essential cinema virtually this year, but that decision has
only intensified our desire to cull great world cinema that might have been otherwise overlooked, and deserves a spotlight, as well as to continue our efforts to truly showcase the filmmakers and the setting of our beloved home neighborhoods of Harlem, Upper Manhattan and the Bronx, which we call the HUB”.
Zipoy’s THE SUBJECT opens the film festival with its tale of a successful white documentary filmmaker, played by Jason Biggs who is dealing with the aftermath of his last film, in which the filmmaker caught the murder of a black teen on camera. Now he is haunted by the death, and his possible role in the murder. The film also stars Emmy nominee Aunjanue Ellis and Anabelle Acosta. Guerra’s LET THE PEOPLE DECIDE could not be more timely, sharing first person accounts from participants in the Civil Rights Movement and looking at present day activists fighting to preserve the hard fought right to vote and battle the growing efforts to suppress that right.
Mudede’s THIN SKIN takes the Centerpiece slot with an adaptation of Ahamefule Olou’s Off-Broadway hit musical play Now I’m Fine, about a harrowing period in the comedian and musician’s real life. A fever dream of recollections of Oluo’s life’s experiences escaping a go-nowhere office life dominated by a proselytizing boss, a broken marriage and a wacky mother, with his two young daughters in tow, his ultimate challenge becomes an illness that literally causes his skin to dissolve. The Harlem International Film Festival will close with the world premiere of Davidson’s ISLAND OF BASEBALL. The film tells the almost forgotten story of how some of the greatest black U.S. ballplayers of all time became legends in Cuba playing integrated baseball there before Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier in the U.S.
Other films making their world premieres include three documentaries; Gold’s IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF MAD DOG COLL about one of the Bronx’s infamous, most wanted mafia killers; Gabriel’s MOSUL follows several key individuals involved in reclaiming the Iraqi city of Mosul from the Islamic State (ISIS); Best’s THE PATTERSON: ANOTHER BRONX TALE details the history of the Bronx as told through the microcosm of the Patterson projects; and Samo’s Pakistani drama WAITING focuses on a young woman trapped by the progress of her mother’s dementia.
Once again, the Harlem International Film Festival will feature the work of local NYC talent, including a showcase of short films made by filmmakers from Harlem, Upper Manhattan, and the Bronx. Films like: the experimental piece set in the Harlem Housing Projects (Christopher Seda’s COLORS), and with themes of de-gentrifying (Washington Kirk’s FREDERICK DOUGLASS BOULEVARD AKA FOOD & DRINK BOULEVARD AKA FDB), paying homage to Langston Hughes (Kenneth Sousie’s HOLD FAST TO DREAMS: GOODNIGHT, HARLEM), the struggles of being the sole woman of color in an office environment (Monique Lola Berkley’s I HATE THIS FKN’ JOB), and a look at the history of two notable buildings on Harlem’s Sugar Hill that housed influential individuals such as W.E.B. Du Bois, Thurgood Marshall, Louise Thompson-Patterson, Elizabeth Catlett, and Paul Robeson, among many others (Karen D. Taylor’s IN THE FACE OF WHAT WE REMEMBER: ORAL HISTORIES OF 409 AND 555 EDGECOMBE AVENUE) are among some of the films putting forward the work of those film artists, as well as celebrating the hub of the city that the film festival calls home.
For Film festival passes, tickets, and more information on the Harlem International Film Festival go to http://HarlemFilmFestival.org
2020 Harlem International Film Festival official selections
Opening Night Selection
THE SUBJECT Manhattan Premiere
Director: Lanie Zipoy
Country: US, Running Time: 119 min
Phil Waterhouse is a successful white documentary filmmaker with a thriving career, brilliant girlfriend, and lovely suburban home. His last film was a rousing critical and commercial hit. But during its making the film’s subject – baby-faced Harlem teenager Malcolm – was murdered, an act Phil caught on tape. Haunted by Malcolm’s death, journalists who once lauded him, hound him about his responsibility in the death. Now, someone stalks Phil, recording his every move. The film stars Jason Biggs, Emmy nominee Aunjanue Ellis and Anabelle Acosta.
Friday Night Spotlight
LET THE PEOPLE DECIDE Upper Manhattan Premiere
Director: Gavin Guerra
Country: US, Running Time: 108 min
Since the founding of this country, who gets to vote has been a contested issue. LET THE PEOPLE DECIDE connects the dots across generations to illustrate how events from over 50 years ago are still reverberating in today’s heated political climate. The narrative follows a Then and Now timeline that shares first person accounts from participants in the Civil Rights Movement as well as meeting present day activists that are fighting to preserve the gains of the past and forge a new path forward. The film will also explore the political fallout following the Voting Rights Act, and how the states came to realign politically and race continued to be a common theme in manipulating and exploiting the motivations of politicians as well as those of the electorate.
Centerpiece Selection
THIN SKIN East Coast Premiere
Director: Charles Mudede
Country: US, Running Time: 91 min
THIN SKIN is a film adaptation of Olou’s Off-Broadway hit musical play Now I’m Fine, about a harrowing period in the comedian and musician’s real life. A fever dream of recollections of Oluo ’s experiences escaping a go-nowhere office life dominated by a proselytizing boss, a broken marriage and a wacky mother, and all of it falling under the aching shadow of his missing father who one day took leave to Nigeria and never returned. And just as Oluo seems to be turning it all around, with his two young daughters in tow, he is struck by an illness that literally causes his skin to dissolve. It’s challenge enough to hold your family together and keep a grip on everything without literally having your body fall apart at the same time.
Closing Night Selection
ISLAND OF BASEBALL World Premiere
Director: Craig Davidson
Countries: US/Cuba, Running Time: 66 min
ISLAND OF BASEBALL tells the almost forgotten story of how some of the greatest black U.S. ballplayers of all time became legends in Cuba playing integrated baseball before Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier in the U.S.
NARRATIVE FEATURES
#LIKE Manhattan Premiere
Director: Sarah Pirozek
Country: US, Running Time: 93 min
On the first anniversary of her younger sister’s death, Woodstock teen, Rosie, discovers the mysterious man who sexploited and bullied her sister to commit suicide back on-line trolling for new victims. After the authorities refuse to get involved, she finds a darker side she never knew she had, as she takes justice into her own hands.
BEFORE THE FIRE New York Premiere
Director: Charlie Buhler
Country: US, Running Time: 94 min
This pandemic thriller follows a Hollywood actress whose rising career is cut short when an influenza pandemic sends her back to the small town she fled years before. But she soon finds something more dangerous than any virus waiting for her.
BLACK EMPEROR OF BROADWAY New York Premiere
Director: Arthur Egeli
Country: US, Running Time: 95 min
In 1921, Eugene O’Neill rejects the use of blackface and casts African American actor Charles Gilpin in the lead of his groundbreaking play “Emperor Jones”. But when both men become famous and Gilpin wants more input into his role, O’Neill refuses to compromise on the use of one important word.
THE BLACKOUT East Coast Premiere
Director: Daniela De Carlo
Country: US, Running Time: 78 min
It’s almost Halloween and the airways buzz with worries about Hurricane Sandy, a storm headed up the coast and straight for New York City. Assuming this will be another false alarm like Irene, New Yorker’s go about their lives, including three roommates throwing a hybrid Halloween and Sandy party. As their smart phones die and candles are lit, party-goers connect and reveal themselves below the social (media) mask. The party grows and ebbs with the storm, until it finally seems like the worst of it has passed, and the promise of light after darkness has never been so true in THE BLACKOUT.
BULLET TRIP East Coast Premiere
Director: Nozomu Kasagi
Country: Japan, Running Time: 83 min
Former top Shinjuku host, Noboru and his hostess lover Noriko rush 800km nonstop to the port town Mihonoseki. The trip, called a “surprise bullet trip” has a purpose known only to Noburu. Unfortunately, the day is December 3rd and the town has rituals in existence for 200O years, so their unexpected trio will now go in even more unexpected directions.
CABARETE East Coast Premiere
Director: Ivan Bordas
Country: Dominican Republic, Running Time: 112 min
Inspired by true events, CABARETE follows the story of Somalia, a good-hearted teenage kite surfer from the Dominican Republic who convinces his idol to train him for an upcoming tournament in Cabarete. However, once there, the town’s hedonistic nightlife quickly catches Somalia’s attention, and he finds himself having to choose between a life of pleasure and pursuing the athlete ambitions he once had.
GOTTA GET DOWN TO IT East Coast Premiere
Director: Jonathan Tazewell
Country: US, Running Time: 84 min
This drama is about Valerie Martin, a young professor of African-American descent, who teaches at Sedalia College, a small Midwestern liberal arts school. When the college’s invitation to a controversial speaker threatens to divide the campus, Val is pressured into introducing him and serving as the public face of the event. Val is pitted against her student, Trey Martin, who becomes the voice of the campus in objection to the speaker. When Val discovers that trying to keep everyone happy may cost her more than she is willing to lose, she chooses a side.
HAINGOSOA New York Premiere
Director: Edouard Joubeaud
Country: Madagascar, Running Time: 72 min
Haingo, a young female dancer from Southern Madagascar, is determined to raise her daughter with dignity. She tries her luck by joining a dance company in Tana, the capital city located at the other end of the country, a whole new world for her.
ISKA North American Premiere
Director: Theodore Boborol
Country: Philippines, Running Time: 100 min
Iska’s world is confined within the state university where she lives in a shanty and works multiple jobs. She’s been married for 30 years to an alcoholic womanizer. And now her only daughter has left to her care her 10-year old grandson with autism. Despite dealing with life’s curveballs one after the other, Iska never loses her tenacity and will to survive.
OMAR AND US New York Premiere
Directors: Maryna Er Gorbach, Mehmet Bahadir Er
Country: Turkey, Running Time: 104 min
Ismet is a recently retired Turkish soldier whose last post was as a Commander of the Coast Guard at the Turkish maritime border. New to civilian life, he struggles to communicate with his family and the people around him. His only son abandoned him and left for the U.S., and now his wife wants to join her son, too. In an unexpected turn of events, he suddenly becomes neighbors with two refugees, Omar and Mariye. Through this encounter and firsthand experience of what refugees have to go through, he is finally able to face his prejudices and reexamine his worldview.
SEVEN SHORT FILMS ABOUT (OUR) MARRIAGE New York Premiere
Director: Chris Hansen
Country: US, Running Time: 99 min
A tempestuous romantic drama in seven vignettes that chronicles an interracial marriage, telling a story of turmoil and tenderness as two people try to make their relationship last as they reckon with racism, career challenges, medical issues, and more.
WAITING World Premiere
Director: Sakina Samo
Country: Pakistan, Running Time: 95 min
A family waits. A father waiting for his family to leave him, a mother waiting for her son to come home and a daughter taking care of her ageing parents, waiting for them to pass on. The loneliness, the indifference of children and the fear of death, ever approaching. However, under this gloom, they find reasons to live. A love renewed, a chance to fix old mistakes for the father, the opportunity of a new life for the daughter. Even amongst the despairing, hopeless lives they as a family lead, even amongst the sudden death in the family that would happen to them, they find reasons to celebrate life, to live on. To continue waiting for what’s yet to come.
ZULU WEDDING New York Premiere
Director: Lineo Sekeleoane
Country: South Africa, Running Time:123 min
Lu left South Africa and her Zulu-Sotho heritage behind to become a dancer in America, and when she falls in love with Tex, she knows he’s the man to marry. But when she brings Tex home to meet her family, she discovers she’s been promised since birth to a Zulu king. Caught between two men, two families, and two countries, she has to come to terms with who she is so she can fight for what she wants.
DOCUMENTARY FEATURES
BAMBOO AND BARBED WIRE New York Premiere
Director: Karen Day
Country: US, Running Time: 85 min
At age 15, Lubna Al Aboud immigrated to the US as Syria crumbled in civil war. Her family settled in Boise, Idaho the year President Trump ordered the Muslim Travel Ban and Japanese American citizens commemorated the 75th anniversary of Executive Order 9066, incarcerating 120,000 Japanese American citizens after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Lubna and former incarcerees of the Idaho concentration camp prove the human spirit prevails against racism with resilience, forgiveness and determination even in America’s darkest times. Interviewees include George Takei and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
EL SUSTO (THE SHOCK) New York Premiere
Director: Karen Akins
Country: Mexico/US, Running Time: 76 min
Mexico’s Number One Killer is not cartels. It’s Type 2 Diabetes. How courageous public health activists in Mexico stirred a giant, the powerful beverage industry (aka “Big Soda”) when they took action to curb sugary drink consumption, with sobering and inspiring lessons for the rest of the world.
ERASING FAMILY Harlem Premiere
Director: Ginger Gentile
Country: Canada, US, Running Time: 93 min
The documentary follows young adults fighting to reunite with their broken families. Part emotional roller coaster, part investigative exposé, we follow the money to exposé why loving moms and dads are erased from their kid’s lives by divorce courts. A wide range of families are covered including the murder of Walter Scott by a police officer.
FOR FEAR OF KOFI East Coast Premiere
Director: Marina Petrovskaia
Countries: US/Ghana, Running Time: 78 min
FOR FEAR OF KOFI investigates the circumstances of a police shooting that took place inside a University of Florida graduate housing complex on March 2, 2010. University police responded to a 911 call from a graduate student who was concerned about her neighbor, Kofi, a fellow PhD student from Ghana. According to her report, Kofi was having a mental breakdown and she could hear him yelling. Ninety minutes later, police forced their way into his apartment and shot him repeatedly, nearly killing him. The university tried to contain the story using non-disclosure agreements and financial settlements. However, not everyone agreed to remain silent. Those involved in the shooting, including the commanding police officer, recount their roles. The film invites the viewer to examine how this shooting could have been avoided.
HIGHER LOVE Manhattan Premiere
Director: Hasan Oswald
Country: US, Running Time: 80 min
Daryl Gant is a Camden father of eight. His girlfriend, Nani, is the love of his life, but struggles to cope with a crippling addiction and the nefarious lifestyle to support it. More troubling is that Nani is pregnant with their new baby boy, Darnez. It becomes Daryl’s new-found purpose to forge a better future for the both of them. Nani’s drug dealer, Iman, was once a drug dealing kingpin in Camden in the 1990’s. He was also a father and factory man, until he caught a dealer’s habit selling dope. He embodies the spirit of many disaffected residents of Camden, taking the viewer on a tour of post-industrial American decay. His own quest to sobriety will eventually force the hand of Nani to make a change, as they forge parallel paths to recovery.
HOPE VILLAGE New York Premiere
Director: Ri-Karlo Handy
Country: US, Running Time: 71 min
In the documentary, Lucy Hall, the founder of one of the nation’s most successful women’s treatment facilities, shares her story of generational addiction to help Georgia families. Mary Hall’s death launches her daughter Lucy into a journey of self-discovery. Lucy drops to the depths of self-destruction with drugs and alcohol only to rise from the ashes and use what she learned to help other women in their own recovery.
IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF MAD DOG COLL World Premiere
Director: Rich Gold
Country: US, Running Time: 59 min
In 1931 Vincent Mad Dog Coll turned the streets of New York City into a shooting gallery. Immigrating from Ireland as an infant, Coll grew up in the Bronx into a life of crime. The film documents this cold-blooded killer from his rise to becoming the Most Wanted criminal in the country to his tragic ending.
MOSUL World Premiere
Director: Daniel Gabriel
Country: Iraq, Running Time: 86 min
MOSUL is built around several characters from contrasting backgrounds and ideologies who we come to know over a period of time (Oct 2016-July 2017), as they play their respective roles in the battle to reclaim the Iraqi city of Mosul from the Islamic State (ISIS). The story is told as a journey into the heart of darkness, through the eyes of a small band of Iraqi filmmakers who navigate up the Tigris River, from Baghdad to Mosul, and ultimately come face to face with evil itself.
OPEKA Manhattan Premiere
Director: Cam Cowan
Country: Madagascar/US, Running Time: 89 min
An iron-willed Argentine priest inspires hope for an entire nation by teaching people living in Madagascar’s largest landfill to build a highly functional city in the capital of their failing African country.
THE PATTERSON: ANOTHER BRONX TALE World Premiere
Director: Bahati Best
Country: US, Running Time: 86 min
In the 1940’s and 50’s, all races lived and learned together in harmony in the Patterson projects. In 2018, it was the sight of the biggest gang takedown in the history of the Bronx. The people who lived it tell the story of what has happened in one project over seven decades, mirroring the stories in all 341 NYCHA housing projects throughout New York City, not unlike housing developments throughout the nation. “Lack of funding, neglect, drugs, despair all stem from the inequity of resources in this society.” Many great people have come out of the Patterson including NBA legend Nate ‘Tiny’ Archibald.
THE PRISON WITHIN New York Premiere
Director: Katherin Hervey
Country: US, Running Time: 86 min
Prisoners incarcerated for murder transcend the barriers of the punitive prison system by working with victims of violent crime to unearth the root cause of their violence. Each character undergoes a radical transformation, revealing how every human being, on both sides of the wall, can break free from their own personal prisons to stop the cycle of violence.
REVIVAL Upper Manhattan Premiere
Director: Josefina Rotman Lyons
Country: US, Running Time: 65 min
In the spring of 2017, four older choreographers, once seminal participants in the modern dance world and Broadway, started the monumental task of creating dances with a diverse group of New York seniors, most of whom had never danced on stage before. Over a few intense months, these choreographers, including the first black artist to have won a Tony award for choreography and a 92-year old former dance partner of pioneer Martha Graham, brought to life their ideas and sparked delight in the senior dancers.
THE RIGHT GIRLS Harlem Premiere
Director: Timothy Wolfer
Countries: Mexico/US, Running Time: 85 min
On a quest to find acceptance and happiness, three young, transgender women – Valentyna, Joanne, and Chantal – meet at the southern tip of Mexico and decide to join the migrant caravan and embark on a 2400-mile journey to the US border together. Fleeing extortion, discrimination, and abusive relationships in their home countries, the women endure hardship after hardship as they slowly make their way to the US – never losing sight of their dream of acceptance and opportunity.
SONGS THAT NEVER END East Coast Premiere
Director: Yehuda Sharim
Country: US, Running Time: 114 min
Having fled their home in Iran, the Dayan family is greeted in Houston with hurricanes and perilous politics. Nine-year-old Hana is bold and brilliant and struggles to be heard while her family comes to grips with life in the sprawling Texan metropolis, constantly reaching out to all that is gone but is still here: a hunger for the future, and songs about a kind world.
THUMBS UP FOR MOTHER UNIVERSE New York Premiere
Director: George King
Country: US, Running Time: 85 min
This feature-length television documentary traces the dramatic life of Lonnie Holley from the basest poverty and education to his becoming a revered visual artist and musician. The film reveals Holley’s creative process—his insights into conservation, ecology and the environment, and his sources of deep inspiration rooted in southern life and African American history and culture.
