ArtsXchange, a community cultural center in East Point, will host two documentary film screenings and community conversations this Juneteenth weekend.
The first event is a screening hosted in partnership with BronzeLens Film Festival titled “Art in Action” on Friday. Four documentary shorts produced by local filmmakers for past seasons of the South Fulton Arts Filmer series will screen. Each focus on a different Atlanta artist or arts nonprofit.
The second event Sunday will be a screening of “Soundtrack to a Coup D’Etat,” a documentary by Belgian filmmaker Johan Grimonprez that premiered at last year’s Sundance Film Festival and won the World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Cinematic Innovation.
While the documentaries differ widely in content and style, each carry a common thread that echoes the ArtsXchange ethos: that art can be an engine for social change.
‘Art in Action’
“Art in Action” will feature four documentary shorts by local filmmakers.
“City of Kings,” directed by Will Feagins Jr., explores the origins and evolution of Atlanta’s graffiti culture. The story features interviews with graffiti historian Antar Fierce and some of Atlanta’s most notable graffiti artists.
Ethan Payne’s “Rhyme Travelers” centers on Soul Food Cypher, a nonprofit organization based near Inman Park that provides lyricists a safe and empowering community to freestyle rap. The film documents several lyricists and their participation in cypher events.
Credit: Alex Acosta
Credit: Alex Acosta
“Cypher represents a circle of people exchanging energy through their rhymes,” said Joe Stu, a lyricist in a video featured on the Soul Food Cypher website. “If you’re a novice emcee you are welcomed in. If you’re an expert emcee you’re invited in. … Words move people.”
Director Jonathan Banks will screen two documentary shorts: The first film, “Just People,” documents the work of ReEntry Arts Connection, an Atlanta nonprofit that uses art to help reduce recidivism in the justice system. The organization offers arts and entertainment technology training and other educational programs.
Banks’ second film, “Say Yes to Destiny,” is a portrait of ArtsXchange founder, poet, educator and community activist Alice Lovelace.
“People need to know who she is,” Banks said. “She inspires.”
Following the screenings, Banks, Feagins, Soul Food Cypher founder Alex Acosta and ReEntry Arts Connection co-founders Curtis A. King and Garry Yates will kick-start a community conversation about how art in action catalyzes growth in individuals and society at large.
‘Soundtrack to a Coup D’Etat’
“Soundtrack to a Coup D’Etat” is not a traditional narrative. Rather, it is a tapestry of archival newsreels, historical footage, filmed musical performances from around the globe, quotes taken from declassified government memos and stanzas from Pan African poetry.
The artistic collage is layered over jazz music by Max Roach, Abbey Lincoln, Louis Armstrong and Dizzy Gillespie, among others. The music lends rhythm and momentum to the story while drawing a clear connection between jazz and the spirit of revolution.
Credit: Robert Lebeck
Credit: Robert Lebeck
Credit: British Pathé
Credit: British Pathé
The historical timeline of the film follows global events leading to the then-Belgian Congo’s eventual 1960 independence from Belgium. It chronicles how world powers — including the U.S., Belgium, France and the Soviet Union — jockeyed for control over Congo’s vast natural resources. During WWII the scramble was for uranium used in the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Following the war, the race was for copper, diamonds, cobalt and industrial rubber — resources critical to postwar reconstruction, wealth and military dominance.
The story follows the rise of Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, a leader whose call for independence threatened Western interests at the time. Just months after taking office, Lumumba was captured and ultimately assassinated. The film explains how his fate was enabled by Belgian operatives, Congolese rivals and U.S. and U.N. complicity.
“Yes, it’s about the assassination of Patrice Lumumba and how the U.S. orchestrated his assassination, but it is also about how jazz and the rebellion of those artists had a huge part of a lot of the protest,” said Angela Oliver, communications director of ArtsXchange.
Following the screening, a panel of guest speakers will lead a conversation about the film’s themes. Panelists include: Kwame Wilburg, a member of the Atlanta Friends of the Congo, a nonprofit established to create lasting change in Congo; DJ Ho’ali “Archy” Ntabona, host of the African Experience Worldwide radio show on 89.3 FM; Muadi Mukenge, an international development consultant; Rozina Shiraz Gilani, founding director of ATL Radical Art, who has created art for activist purposes around the globe; and Ralph Miles Jones, an Atlanta-based composer, professor and ethnomusicologist.
Lovelace, the ArtsXchange founder, said the films and community conversations on Juneteenth weekend reflect the organization’s core belief: that artists are change-makers.
“We don’t exist to decorate the world,” she said. “We exist to shake it up.”
If you go
“Art in Action” film series. 7-9 p.m. Friday and “Soundtrack to a Coup D’Etat.” 4-7 p.m. Sunday. Free. Arts Xchange, 2148 Newnan St., East Point, 404-624-4211. artsxchange.org.
About the Author
Keep Reading
The Latest
Featured
