College to Host Louis Massiah for Black History Month

Documentary filmmaker Louis Massiah, whose work includes an episode in the Emmy Award–winning series Eyes on the Prize II, will be spending three days on campus in February as this year’s Office of Multicultural Affairs distinguished artist in residence. In addition to conducting two master classes and meeting with students and faculty, he will hold three free public screenings of his films. All of Massiah’s public events, which are part of the College’s celebration of Black History Month, will take place in Park Hall Auditorium at 7:00 p.m.

On Monday, February 18, Massiah will screen and discuss the "A Nation of Law?" episode he directed for Eyes on the Prize II, the 1990 documentary series on the civil rights movement, and Louise Thompson Patterson: In Her Own Words, an oral history portrait of the political activist and Harlem Renaissance cultural worker.

On Tuesday, February 19, Massiah will present and discuss his 1987 film, The Bombing of Osage Avenue, which documents the 1985 Philadelphia police bombing of the back-to-Africa MOVE organization. He will also show a selection of tapes from the Scribe Video Center, a Philadelphia-based teaching facility for emerging filmmakers and video artists that he founded in 1982.

On Wednesday, February 20, the presentation will center on W. E. B. DuBois: A Biography in Four Voices, Massiah’s 1997 docu-mentary on the life of the great scholar and cofounder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Four prominent African American writers --- Wesley Brown, Thulani Davis, Toni Cade Bambara, and Amiri Baraka --- narrate successive periods in DuBois’s life and describe his influence on their work. Massiah describes the film as "a story-driven exploration of Dr. DuBois’s life that explores the varied approaches of the struggle for African American liberation, including black nationalism, socialism, and pan-Africanism." First broadcast on PBS, W. E. B. DuBois was nominated for an Emmy and received top honors from the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame and the Paul Robeson Film Festival.

Massiah’s films, distinguished by their exploration of civil rights themes, have been shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Berlin Film Festival, and the Robert Flaherty Film Festival. His many honors include the George Foster Peabody Award for excellence in broadcast journalism. In 1996 he was awarded a MacArthur fellowship, popularly referred to as the "genius award."

Certain events in Massiah’s visit are also part of the Ithaca College "Race and Its Meanings" discussion series and the Cinema on the Edge program in the Roy H. Park School of Communications.

For more information call the Office of Multicultural Affairs at 274-1692.