The Tamejavi Film Series will screen films rarely shown in mainstream theaters or festivals and that are from a new wave of cinema - films produced by first generation Americans that tell stories related to their heritage.
Slingshot Hip Hop is a documentary that weaves together the stories of young Palestinians living in the West Bank, Gaza, and inside Israel as they discover Hip Hop and employ it as a tool to surmount divisions imposed by occupation and poverty. The director, Jackie Salloum, follows these young artists as they grapple with the day-to-day physical boundaries imposed by the occupation, not to mention the more subtle forms of division that conspire to restrict their lives. Slingshot Hip Hop made its premiere at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival-Documentary Competition.
Semblance: Notes from the Promised Land
Written By: Devoya Mayo & Stephen Mayu
In 1965 Claude Brown wrote his classic autobiographical novel, "Manchild in the Promised Land." The story is that of the first generation of blacks who fled the South in search of a Northern "Promised Land" replete with opportunity, equality, and a shot at the so-called American Dream.
Semblance: Notes from the Promised Land is a collection of monologues based on real conversations with Black/African Americans who, much like the characters in Claude Brown's novel, continue said search.
These are stories of achievement, love, family, despair, fear and all the nuances that create concern within a community who can both celebrate the arrival of the first African American President and relate to the scenario of a Harvard University Professor becoming the victim of racial profiling while entering his own home.