A film and cultural festival honoring the late African-American lesbian filmmaker Audre Lorde is touring community venues, libraries and universities nationally—and will stop at the University of Illinois at Chicago Oct. 2 and Northwestern University Oct. 3-4.
The Northwestern event will take place at Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, 40 Arts Circle Dr., Evanston.
The movies making up this touring festival include Audre Lorde: The Berlin Years 1984 to 1992; A Litany for Survival (2012): The Life and Work of Audre Lorde (1995); The Edge of Each Other's Battles: The Vision of Audre Lorde (2002); and Hope in My Heart: The May Ayim Story (1997). (Ayim was a Ghanaian-German poet and political personality.)
In addition to the films, author Ika Hugel-Marshall, M.A., will appear in person to read from her autobiography, Invisible Woman: Growing Up Black in Germany (2001).
For more information about the UIC event, email Professor Elizabeth Loentz at loentz@uic.edu; regarding the NU event, email Professor Anna Parkinson at parkinson@northwestern.edu .
FROM A NEWS RELEASE
LEGACY OF AFRICAN AMERICAN ACTIVIST AND WRITER AUDRE LORDE EXPLORED
Film screenings, book reading and discussions at Northwestern University
EVANSTON, Ill. —- African American activist, poet and writer Audre Lorde had a profound impact on the civil rights, feminist, and LGBTQ liberation movements in the United States and abroad.
"Audre Lorde's Cultural Legacy," Wednesday and Thursday, Oct. 3 and 4, a two day set of programs at Northwestern University, will examine Lorde's life and work, including the largely untold story of her residency in 1980s West Berlin, where she inspired the Afro-German community and women's movement. The programs, which will include a book reading and four film screenings, will be held at Block Cinema at the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art. The event is free and open to the public.
- "Invisible Woman: Growing up Black in Germany," 4 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 3. Audre Lorde Literary Award winner Ika Hugel-Marshall, who was a friend of Lorde, will present selections from her autobiography in a bilingual (German and English) reading. A reception follows.
- "Audre Lorde: The Berlin Years 1984—1992," 6 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 3 (Dagmar Schultz, 2012, Germany, video, 79 min.) Filmmaker Dagmar Schultz presents the Midwest premiere of her documentary film exploring Lorde's impact on the German political and cultural scene during a decade of profound social change. A short film produced by Schultz about the life of German-Ghanaian poet, academic and political personality May Ayim, "Hope in My Heart" (Marie Binder, 1997, Germany, video, 29 min.), will be shown first. Michelle Wright, associate professor of African American studies, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, will introduce the program.
- "A Litany for Survival: The Life and Work of Audre Lorde" (Ada Gay Griffin and Michele Parkerson, 1995, USA, video, 90 min.) and "The Edge of Each Other's Battles: The Vision of Audre Lorde" (Jennifer Abod, 2002, USA, video, 59 min.), 8 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 4. These two films explore Lorde's life and her broader legacy. "Litany for Survival" is an epic portrait of Lorde, from her childhood roots in Harlem to her battle with breast cancer, and her inspirational body of work. "The Edge of Each Other's Battles" centers around the groundbreaking conference "I Am Your Sister: Forging Global Connections across Differences," which brought over 1,200 activists from more than 23 countries to Boston in 1990. D. Soyini Madison, professor of anthropology and African studies, Weinberg College, and professor and chair of the department of performance studies, School of Communication, will introduce the screenings.
"Audre Lorde's Cultural Legacy" is sponsored by Northwestern's departments of African American studies, English, German and history, the comparative literary studies, American studies and the Latino and Latina studies programs, the poetry and poetics colloquium, The Graduate School, the School of Communication, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and the Alice Kaplan Institute for the Humanities. Support is also provided by the Goethe-Institut Chicago.
"Audre Lorde's Cultural Legacy" is presented in conjunction with the Block Museum exhibition "De-Natured: German Art from Joseph Beuys to Martin Kippenberger, Selections from the James Keith Brown and Eric Diefenbach Collection," on display Sept. 21 to Dec. 9.
For more information, visit blockmuseum.northwestern.edu/audrelorde or call 847.491.4000. The Block Museum is located at 40 Arts Circle Drive in Evanston. Free parking is available on campus after 4 p.m. The Museum is also accessible via the CTA Purple Line Davis and Foster stops.
