CONGO OYÉ
Dir. Bill Stephens
Republic of Congo (Brazzaville)/US,1971, 45 Min.

A rare and absolutely unknown work, made by Bill Stephens in collaboration with French filmmaker Chris Marker and Eldridge and Kathleen Cleaver. Congo Oyé was never completed and long believed lost until it was recently unearthed on video cassette from the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. The film follows an exploratory visit to Africa’s first People’s Republic declared by President Marien Ngouabi.

Courtesy of the Reserve Film and Video Collection of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

Post-Screening Discussion with Professor Robyn C. Spencer (City University of New York), Glen Ford (Black Agenda Report), and Kambale Musavuli (Friends of the Congo)

 

preceded by the short film:

SOKONI
Dir. Benoit Mugabo
DR Congo, 2017, 13 Min.

A winding, colorful walk in the rain through Virunga Market in Goma.

 

SPEAKER BIOS:

Robyn C. Spencer is a historian whose research centers on social protest after World War II, urban and working-class radicalism, and gender. She teaches survey and seminar courses on African American Heritage, Civil rights and Black Power and Black women’s history in the US as an Associate Professor of History at Lehman College, City University of New York. Her book The Revolution Has Come: Black Power, Gender, and the Black Panther Party in Oakland, analyzes the organizational evolution of the Black Panther Party in Oakland and was published by Duke University Press in December 2016.

Glen Ford is the Executive Editor of the Black Agenda Report and co-founder of America's Black Forum (TV). He is a former White House, Capitol Hill and State Department correspondent.

Kambale Musavuli, a native of the Democratic Republic of Congo, is a human rights activist, Student Coordinator and National Spokesperson with the Friends of the Congo. He has written for The Washington Post, Foreign Policy in Focus, The Huffington Post and numerous other academic and news publications. He has been interviewed on National Public Radio, Democracy Now, ABC News, Al Jazeera English Television, Radio France International and a myriad of radio and television programs. He has been featured in documentaries such as Iara Lee’s “Cultures of Resistance,” Martin Scorsese’s “Surviving Progress,” and the film “Crisis in the Congo: Uncovering the Truth.”

 

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Thursday, October 19th
7:30PM
OPENING NIGHT SCREENING
+ Q&A w/ Special Guests

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