Repeating Islands

As part of its ongoing African Diaspora Film Festival (ADFF) Spring and Summer Film Series at Teachers College, Columbia University, ADFF is presenting the “Love and Society” film series on May 1 and 2, 2010, “a selection of classic, comedy, and urban films that explore the dynamics between the values promoted by societies and individual’s ability to give and receive love.” On Saturday, May 1, the series presents The Other World (France/Nigeria) at 1:00pm, No Time to Die (Ghana) at 3:00pm, Burning an Illusion (UK/Barbados) at 5:00pm, and El mestizo (Venezuela) at 7:00pm. All films will be screened at Teachers College, Columbia University, at 525 West 120th Street, New York.

Descriptions:

Burning an Illusion  (UK/Barbados); directed by Menelik Shabazz: The illusions being burnt are those of Pat Williams, an attractive 22-year old Black girl with a steady clerical job, her own little flat in West London, and the aim of settling down to a comfortable lower-middle class married life with Mr. Right. She is shaken out of this dream by Del, a feckless, disgruntled, chauvinist type, who moves in with her uninvited. He expects sex and food on demand and comes to regard the right side of the bed as his private preserve. The film explores first the growing tensions of the affair and then the girl’s gradual realization of the complex intersections between her aspirations, harsh realities, the values of the white world in which she lives, and race/class/power relations.

El mestizo (Venezuela); directed by Mario Handler: The action takes place in a village on the Venezuelan coast, a place of fishermen and big haciendas. Jose Ramón, son of a white aristocrat and a humble black fisher-woman, is trying to define his own identity while dealing with social and sexual conflicts, power, culture, the law, and the impossible relationship he has with both his parents.

For more information, see http://www.nyadff.org/April_10.html

For trailer of Burning an Illusion, see