Civil rights film fest celebrates transmasculine activist
March on Washington Film Festival runs Sept. 30-Oct. 4
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(Washington, D.C.) - September 17, 2021 — The March on Washington Film Festival, devoted to telling the stories of civil rights heroes as well as foot soldiers, has launched a national effort that shares the Festival’s films and panels as an educational resource. The Festival also provided professional development opportunities for educators nationwide
Read MoreThe 9th Annual March on Washington Film Festival Announces 2021 Films
Tickets now on sale for the longest-running film festival devoted to civil rights
March on Washington Film Festival 2021 to Partner with CityBridge Education and Patagonia
Collective effort promotes and celebrates youth activism
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March on Washington Film Festival 2021 to Focus on Intersection of Environmental Justice and Civil Rights
Rep. James E. Clyburn to Receive John Robert Lewis Lifetime Legacy Award; Nikole Hannah-Jones Named Vivian Malone Courage Award Honoree
Read MoreMarch on Washington Film Festival recognizes that while Derek Chauvin was found guilty in the murder of George Floyd, it is not a true reflection of justice, nor does it change the fact that countless lives have needlessly been lost to police brutality. We pray that this decision brings some sense of closure to George Floyd’s family, friends, and community.
We know that this is only one small step towards the victory that we are searching for. The conviction today does not erase the pain that countless parents, children and loved ones have felt at the hands of racist police and justice system. It does not address the root causes of police brutality, which are rooted in white supremacy and embedded into our systems of government.
Read MoreThe March on Washington Film Festival is launching a spring series of workshops, Minding Your Movie Business: Pro Tips for Emerging Filmmakers. In honor of the first workshop for writers, MOWFF Artistic Director, Isisara Bey, interviewed board member and award-winning journalist and author, A’Lelia Bundles. Bundles is the great-great-granddaughter and biographer of Madam C.J. Walker, America’s first African American woman millionaire.
Isisara Bey: It is said that a writer should write about what they know. Was that part of the impetus for you telling the story of Madam C.J. Walker? And why was telling this story important to you?
A’Lelia Bundles: I know the conventional wisdom is to write what you know. But I would also add to write what you learn, the things that we are exposed to and attracted to. The seeds for my telling this story were really planted in part because my mother went to work every day at the Walker company in Indianapolis and I would go with her to her office and I had memories of that.
But maybe even more so because her father, my grandfather who was born in 1892, was a great storyteller and knew his family history. He was married to my grandmother who was part of the Walker Company. But his grandfather had been elected to the state legislature during Reconstruction in Arkansas, his father had been valedictorian of his class at Lincoln in the 1880s, and his mother had gone to Oberlin. I didn't know those things so I couldn't write about those things without learning them. But I did have this sense of history as being something very different from what I learned in school.
Read MoreNow in its eighth year, the March on Washington Film Festival has an all-virtual line-up for the first time ever, highlighting the events and heroes of the Civil Rights Movement. This year’s program will feature a series of film screenings, workshops, panel discussions and live performances centered on the theme “Who Tells The Story?” and will highlight thought-leaders and influencers from around the world. To kick-off the Film Festival, there will be an Opening Night Awards Gala on Monday, September 21, which will include honorees from a select class of visionary leaders and organizations in the fight for civil rights.
Read MoreThe “March on Washington Film Festival,” an annual civil rights legacy project tracing the history of the American Civil Rights Movement, will hold its first-ever all-virtual event from September 20-27. Now in its eighth year, the festival, which was driven online by the COVID-19 pandemic, will feature a series of film screenings, workshops, panel discussions and live performances centered on this year’s theme: “Who Tells The Story?” The winners of the 2020 Students & Emerging Filmmaker Competition, which received 100 submissions from around the globe, will also be announced.
Read MoreThe Brother’s Network, a non-profit arts organization is showcasing The March on Washington Film Festival… The film festival was founded in 2013 in Washington, D.C. to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963. The co-founder, Robert Raben, started the festival to “tell the truth about our history.”
The flagship festival, usually held in Washington, D.C., uses film screenings as a platform for panel discussions featuring filmmakers, academics and activists bringing together an audience that is diverse in age, class, and ethnicity.
Read MoreStacey Abrams' documentary about voter suppression “All In: The Fight For Democracy” debuted Friday on Amazon Prime and will be featured during this week’s virtual March on Washington Film Festival.
The movie intersperses Abrams' own interest in voting and her battle for governor of Georgia in 2018 with a broader array of historical and current issues related to voter suppression. It goes back to the dawn of the United States, when only white, property-owning men could vote. Over time, the documentary notes, voting expanded but there have been plenty of forces making it more difficult to vote, often targeting minorities. Among the issues addressed: voter ID laws, gerrymandering, poll closures and voting roll purges.
Read MoreJames Baldwin debated William F. Buckley in February 1965. Khalil Muhammad and David Frum are reimagining that debate for the 2020 March on Washington Film Festival. In February 1965, two of America's most towering public intellectuals faced off at the University of Cambridge in England. They were there to debate the proposition: "The American Dream is at the expense of the American Negro."
Read MoreToday, the March on Washington Film Festival (MOWFF), an annual civil rights and social change legacy project, announced the line-up of films, workshops, discussions, and performances that will headline this year’s week-long event from Sunday, September 20 to Sunday, September 27. For the first time ever, the Film Festival will be an all-virtual experience, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, but the content and speaker line-up will remain just as engaging and even more accessible to a diverse array of audiences.
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The March on Washington Film Festival is deeply saddened by the passing of Congressman John Lewis. Our condolences rest with his family at this time of grief and we mourn with the country the loss of a national treasure who dedicated his life to civil rights.
The Festival was in fact inspired by Congressman John Lewis. It was on a Spring Pilgrimage to Alabama that our founder, accompanying the Congressman and struck by his devotion to lifting up the “battle soldiers” of the movement, was encouraged to begin telling the stories which became over time the March on Washington Festival. Cong. Lewis’s humility, and reminder to lift up the stories of ordinary men and women whose commitment to “good trouble” brought us closer to freedom, lives on in our Festival today.
Read MoreThe March on Washington Film Festival, a national civil rights legacy project, was awarded a $300,000 general operating support grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to expand the impact of its programming over two years.
“Our organization has been experiencing transformative growth over the past 24 months,” said Samantha Abrams, executive director of MOWFF. There is great need for the work we do, which is to better tell the story of our nation’s civil rights history and have it serve as inspiration for young people who are the foot soldiers and emerging leaders of our Civil Rights Movement today. We know this grant will help bring about significant change to the educational opportunities we offer students.”
In the 1930s, life started getting harder for Jewish academics in Germany.
Not as hard as it would get for all Jews in Germany and the rest of Eastern Europe, of course. They weren’t herded into ghettos. They weren’t sent off on cattle cars to extermination camps. That was still a few years off.
Read MoreFounded in 2013, the March on Washington Film Festival is celebrating their 6th year of bringing to life stories of both icons and foot soliders from the Civil Rights Movement.
Opening July 12 and running until July 21, the nine days feature 27 events across multiple venues including NPR, Studio Theatre, and Washington National Cathedral. There is something for everyone from film screenings, conversations/panels, art exhibits, performances and more.
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As Diahann Carroll celebrates her 82nd birthday today (July 17), the legendary entertainer is still dazzling fans.
Recently, Carroll visited the nation’s capital for The March on Washington Film Festival: ten days of film, music, scholarship and the arts, showcasing the unsung heroes and untold stories of the Civil Rights era, as well as contemporary activism. The Raben Group galvanized African-American women, including executive producer Isisara Bey, and GreiBO founder Shelonda Stokes, to line produce the annual festival, which runs through July 22.
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The March on Washington Film Festival returns this month for its fifth year of celebrating films that explore themes of civil rights, activism and social justice.
Panels and events including actress Diahann Carroll, producer 9th Wonder and former Attorney General Eric Holder are among the highlights of the 21 events that run from July 13-22.
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WASHINGTON — Vanessa Garrison will lace up her orange Nikes on Friday and join dozens of others in Ruleville, Miss., in the 1.5-mile walk from City Hall to the gravesite of civil rights legend and voting rights pioneer Fannie Lou Hamer.
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