Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Video: Black Panthers traces crucial imprint of Black Power group - TheLipTV



EPISODE SYNOPSIS:
More than four decades after the Black Panther Party was launched in Oakland, CA, the movement and its top leaders remain a vivid memory today for people who lived during the group’s activities during the ‘60s and ‘70s. The documentary THE BLACK PANTHERS: VANGUARD OF THE REVOLUTION weaves the voices of many diverse individuals who dealt with the group - including police, FBI informants, journalists, white supporters, and detractors – as well as followers who remained loyal to the party and others who left. The doc’s director Stanley Nelson and former Black Panther leader Kathleen Neal Cleaver sit down with Ondi Timoner to discuss the film during this special Sundance episode of BYOD.


GUEST BIO & FILM INFO:
Stanley Nelson, a 2002 MacArthur “Genius” Fellow, is executive producer of Firelight Films and director of BLACK PANTHERS: SEIZE THE TIME. His most recent film, FREEDOM RIDERS, is the winner of three Primetime Emmy Awards. Over the last ten years, Nelson has garnered multiple industry awards for his films: JESSE OWENS, WOUNDED KNEE, A PLACE OF OUR OWN, MARCUS GARVEY: LOOK FOR ME IN THE WHIRLWIND, THE BLACK PRESS: SOLDIERS WITHOUT SWORDS, and THE MURDER OF EMMETT TILL. During this period, he also produced and directed SWEET HONEY IN THE ROCK: RAISE YOUR VOICE and JONESTOWN: THE LIFE AND DEATH OF PEOPLE’S TEMPLE, which was shortlisted for the Academy Awards. Several of his films have shown at the Sundance Film Festival. He currently is also in production on another film, FREEDOM SUMMER, which explores a key movement during the civil rights era – the 1964 Freedom Summer campaign.

Kathleen Neal Cleaver, who currently holds an appointment as a senior lecturer and research fellow at Emory University School of Law, has spent her life participating in the human rights struggle. She started alongside her parents in the 1950s civil rights protests in Alabama. By 1966, Kathleen Neal dropped out of Barnard College in New York to join the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) where she served in its Campus Program based in Atlanta. She then moved to the San Francisco Bay Area and from 1967 to 1971, she was the first Communications Secretary of the Black Panther Party. After sharing years of exile, in Algeria and France with former husband Eldridge Cleaver, she returned with her family to the United States in late 1975.

Cleaver co-founded and produced the International Black Panther Film Festival based in Harlem from 1999 through 2003. She has participated in international forums and study programs at the American University of Beirut in 2006, in Rio de Janeiro in 2007, and in 2009 at a U.S. law school consortium’s summer law and policy program. She was a delegate to the Third International Book Fair (FILVEN) in Venezuela during November 2007, and was an honored participant in the American delegation to the 2nd Pan African Cultural Festival held in Algiers, Algeria in July 2009. Kathleen Cleaver’s path continues to engage her in forums, teaching, writing, and film projects that incorporate human rights concerns both within the United States and across the African Diaspora.

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