In honour of Black History Month, the Institut Franco-Américain in Rennes has varied events about African-American culture and history. There is music, with a gospel and dance show, Shosholoza, an exhibition and concert on female jazz singers and a bilingual lecture about hip-hop. As well as a conversation with Brooklyn-based Dawnie Walton on her first … Continue reading “Celebrate Black History Month in Rennes”
Wes Anderson’s new film is about a 1950s space cadet convention in a tiny desert town famous for its asteroid crater. After an alien sighting, the government puts the town into lockdown with a media blackout. But the ingenious cadets want to get out. Or… it’s about some Actor’s Studio actors on the East Coast … Continue reading “Asteroid City: Seeing Stars”
Wes Anderson’s latest film The French Dispatch is a homage both to his adopted country and to the amazing writers nurtured by The New Yorker magazine, of which Anderson is an avid reader. As with his earlier films like The Grand Budapest Hotel and Moonrise Kingdom, he has assembled an amazing cast. The conceit of … Continue reading “Love Letter to France”
The 2019 film adaptation of James Baldwin’s novel If Beale Street Could Talk, a love story set in 1970s Harlem, makes an excellent complement to Shine Bright 2de File 1 “United Colors of Harlem” or Shine Bright 1re File 8 “African-American Art” . This video can be used in class to introduce the film and Baldwin. … Continue reading “James Baldwin: Love in Harlem”
If Beale Street Could Talk, a love story set in 1970s Harlem, is the first English-language film adapted from one of James Baldwin’s novels. This video and interactive book can be used in class to explore Baldwin’s work and the film. It is a romance but also an ode to loving family bonds. And it … Continue reading “Love in Harlem: Teaching Tools”
If Beale Street Could Talk, one of this year’s Oscar-nominated films has impeccable credentials: the first English-language film adapted from one of James Baldwin’s novels, it was both adapted and directed by Barry Jenkins, who won the 2017 Best Picture Oscar for Moonlight. Like Moonlight, and Baldwin’s work, it is centered on a working-class African-American … Continue reading “Love in Harlem”
In honour of the Black History Month, the Institut Franco-Américain in Rennes has two events centered around author James Baldwin, just in time for the release of the Oscar-nominated If Beale Street Could Talk. Born in 1924 in Harlem, New York, Baldwin is remembered as a novelist, poet, playwright, essayist and social critic. From 1948 … Continue reading “Black History Month in Rennes”
In 1987, James Baldwin died without having finished his last book. He left just thirty pages of the manuscript. The book was intended to be a personal account of the assassination of three of his friends: Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. In the documentary film I Am Not Your Negro, Raoul … Continue reading ““I Am Not Your Negro””
