Sights & Sounds is your weekly guide to the Bay Area arts scene. Rasheed Shabazz, Media, Arts & Culture Director at RYSE Center in Richmondtold KALW’s Jen Chien about three great arts events happening around the Bay this weekend.
- "Ayiti Mon Amour" at the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archiveon 4/28
- Final Fridays Films of Solidarity and Resistance at the EastSide Cultural Center on 4/28
- Oakhella Day Party at the Bottoms Up Community Garden on 4/30
Set five years after the devastating 2010 earthquake, Guetty Felin's film eschews the images that saturated screens after the disaster. Felin refuses to tell a tale of victimhood. Instead, she places the island's narrative back in the hands of Haitians whose lives aren't reducible to headlines. And as her characters begin to heal, Felin suggests that the island will too. This is a magical neo-realist tale informed by Felin’s experience as a documentary filmmaker. She calls it “a love poem to my native land.” The film is showing at BAMPFA in Berkeley at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, April 28th.
SHABAZZ: My maternal lineage goes through Louisiana back to Haiti, and so it's a place I felt a connection with.
Final Friday Films is a free monthly community event produced by EastSide Arts Alliance (ESAA) that screens on the last Friday of every month. ESAA is dedicated to uniting art with activism to work for community empowerment and cultural development, and to build bridges between the disenfranchised, racially, and ethnically divided communities that reside in Oakland. The screening will also have free food and a discussion after the movie. This movie has not yet been announced, but the screening will take place at the EastSide Cultural Center on Friday evening at 7 p.m.
SHABAZZ: Often these films are chosen to draw on some sort of solidarity, either connecting people to things that are happening globally or to current events that are happening in Oakland or elsewhere.
OakHella is a lifestyle and promotions organization founded by Oakland natives and longtime residents. They're throwing this party for their one-year anniversary. Chinaka Hodge is hosting the event, and there will be food, art, and music from both bands and DJs. The party is taking place at the Bottoms Up Community Garden in Oakland and will go all day long on Sunday, April 39th. It's free with an RSVP.
SHABAZZ: People from Oakland just hella like saying hella - any opportunity we will take hella advantage.
