The 3rd Annual Sidney Poitier Film Festival

Wednesday February 29, 2012:                    Citizenship

2PM:       La  Haine  (1996)

Aimlessly whiling away their days in the concrete environs of their dead-end suburbia, Vinz, Hubert, and Saïd—a Jew, an African, and an Arab—give human faces to France’s immigrant populations, their bristling resentments at their social marginalization slowly simmering until they reach a climactic boiling point.  

98 mins

3.45PM:    Lakay (2009)

A powerful and engaging social issue documentary investigating the living situations and treatment of Haitian immigrants and their children in the Bahamas.  15 mins

4PM:     Roundtable: Migration and World Cinema

Dr. Keithley Woolward, Dr. Toni Francis, Dr. Mayuri Deka, Dr. Raymond Oenbring, Dr. Ian Bethel-Bennet

6PM:        Sugar (2008)

Sugar is the inspirational story of Miguel Santos, a gifted pitcher struggling to make it to the big leagues of American baseball. Nicknamed "Azúcar" (Spanish for "sugar"), 19-year-old Miguel travels from his poor but tightly-knit community in the Dominican Republic to play minor league baseball in the United States - where anything is possible. 120 mins

8PM        Milk and Honey (1988)

A proud but penniless Jamaican woman seeks employment as a foreign domestic in Toronto, only to find it not a land of milk and honey but of compromise and diminished expectations. 89 mins

Thursday March 1, 2012:  

US Migration

2PM     El Norte  (1983)

Brother and sister Enrique and Rosa flee persecution at home in Guatemala and journey north, through Mexico and on to the United States, with the dream of starting a new life.  A work of social realism imbued with dreamlike imagery, El Norte is a lovingly rendered, heartbreaking story of hope and survival.  141mins

4.30PM:  A Day Without a Mexican (2004)
California awakens one day to discover that one third of its population has vanished. A peculiar pink fog surrounds the state and communication outside its boundaries has completely shut down. As the day progresses, it becomes apparent that the sole characteristic linking the missing 14 million is their Hispanic heritage.

100 mins

6:30 PM:   The Other Side of Immigration (2009)

Based on over 700 interviews in Mexican towns where about half the population has left to work in the United States, The Other Side of Immigration asks why so many Mexicans come to the U.S. and what happens to the families and communities they leave behind.(55 mins)

8PM:       Lilies of the Field (1963)
An unemployed construction worker (Homer Smith) heading out west stops at a remote farm in the desert to get water when his car overheats. The farm is being worked by a group of East European Catholic nuns, headed by the strict mother superior (Mother Maria), who believes that Homer has been sent by God to build a much needed church in the desert.  (94 mins)

Friday March 2^nd, 2012: 

Rural to Urban Migration

12PM     Made in China (2007)
This documentary tells one of the millions of stories of migrants from rural China who comprise the backbone of the Chinese economic miracle. It provides a human face behind the ubiquitous label "Made in China.” (52 minutes)

2PM      Sugar Cane Alley (1983)
Set in 1931, Sugar Cane Alley paints a rich image of life in Martinique, filtered through the coming-of-age of a bright, sweetly opportunistic boy learning to reconcile the value of his shanty-town roots with the education opportunities that beckon him to the big city. (103 mins)

4PM     The Harder They Come (1972)
Reggae legend Jimmy Cliff stars as Ivanhoe "Ivan" Martin, an aspiring young singer who leaves his rural village for the city of Kingston, hoping to make a name for himself. Robbed of his money and possessions his first day in town, he finds work with a self-righteous, bullying preacher, and an unscrupulous music mogul who exploits young hopefuls. (120 min)

6PM                Rain (2008)

Determined to reconcile with the mother who abandoned her when she was just a toddler, a Bahamian adolescent boards a local mail boat and sets sail for Nassau in director Maria Govan's intimate family drama. (93 mins)

8PM             Cry, the Beloved Country (1952)
Adapted from the novel by Alan Paton, this 1951 film is set in South Africa and is a commentary about apartheid. It stars Canada Lee as a native aging Christian priest, who travels to Johannesburg in search of his sister and his son. He finds that his sister is a prostitute and his son is missing.(103 mins)

Saturday March 3^rd, 2012:                            European Migration

2PM                 

Dirty Pretty Things (2002)

A riveting thriller about an illegal immigrant in London named Okwe (Chiwetal Ejiofor, Amistad), a doctor in his homeland who now works days as a taxi driver and nights as a hotel desk clerk.  (97 mins)

4PM   The Other Europe (2006)

The Other Europe is a penetrating study of the economics and politics behind the immigration debate in Europe.  (58 mins)

6PM                Paris Blues (1961)
Ram Bowen and Eddie Cook are two expatriate jazz musicians living in Paris where, unlike America at the time, Jazz musicians are celebrated and racism is a non-issue (98 mins)

8PM       A Warm December  (1973)

Dr. Matt Younger and his daughter arrive for a month-long visit to London for dirt-bike racing and unexpectedly, a new romance for the widowed Dr. Younger. His new love interest is the beautiful and playful Catherine who seems to enjoy eluding Dr. Younger as much as she enjoys eluding the mysterious men who are following her. (99 mins)

Sunday March 4^th, 2012:                               Spiritual Journeys

2PM      Sankofa (1993)

A self-absorbed Black American fashion model on a photo shoot in Africa is spiritually transported back to a plantation in the West Indies where she experiences first-hand the physical and psychic horrors of chattel slavery, and eventually the redemptive power of community and rebellion. (124 mins)

4.30 PM         Fanon  (1996)
This innovative film biography restores Fanon to his rightful place at the center of contemporary discussions around post-colonial identity. (52 mins)

5.30 PM       Belonging (2004)
Born into exile as the daughter of political émigrés, Kethiwe Ngcobo and her family returned to their longed-for homeland, South Africa in 1994. (52 mins)

7 PM     The Motorcycle Diaries (2004)

The dramatization of a motorcycle road trip future revolutionary Che Guevara went on in his youth that showed him his life's calling. (126 mins)