Friday,
May 7 at 7:30 PM
Scribe
Video Center Producers’ Forum - Producer/Editor
Jean Philippe Boucicaut in Person
Liberia:
America's
Stepchild
dir.
Nance Oku Bright and Jean Philippe Boucicaut, USA,
2004, Beta SP, color
 Two
hundred years after the first Africans were transported to America
against their will, their
descendants sailed back to the land of their ancestors. Soon,
thousands of freeborn Blacks and former slaves settled on Africa's
west coast, in the land that would become Liberia.
The untold story of America's
African progeny is presented in Liberia: America's Stepchild.
This dramatic documentary follows the parallel stories of America's
relationship with the African republic
of Liberia
-- founded and backed
by the American Colonization Society and the U.S.
government in the 1820s
as a home for freeborn Blacks and former slaves -- and the settlers'
relationship with the native people. One hundred fifty years
later, Liberians were divided into two distinct groups: the
often privileged American descendants, known as Americo-Liberians,
and the indigenous population. It was a division that would
lead to political unrest and, ultimately, sow the seeds of war.
Jean
Philippe Boucicaut is an Emmy Award-winning editor with more
than 15 years experience in film and television. He co-produced
and edited Secret Daughter for Frontline
on PBS, winning a DuPont-Columbia Gold Baton and an Emmy, and
edited episodes 3 and 4 of Africans in America, the
winner of the 1999 Peabody Award. His most recent projects have
been Citizen King for the American Experience,
Russian Trinity, This Far by Faith, and Matters
of Race.
Preceded
by Hadja, a portrait of a Liberian grandmother living
in Philadelphia,
produced by Filmon Mehbrahtu of Reel Voices.
Tickets are $10.00
for general admission, $9.00 for I House members, students and
seniors. Available one hour before showtime at the International
House box office.
For more information about Scribe Video Center and the Producers’
Forum screening and discussion series call Scribe at 215.735.3785
or visit www.scribe.org.
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