Thursday, June 21, 2007

Assata: One Woman--Brooklyn Reception and Press Conference to Announce Film Adaptation

Immediate Release
Contact: BLFC 347-571-9537
INFO.BLFC.ORG

Who: BLACK AND LATINO FILMMAKER'S COALITION (BLFC)

What: Hosts reception and press conference to announce
production of new film adaptation of Akua Taylor's powerful stageplay Assata:One Woman.

When: June 23, 2007. 6:00pm

Where: Brooklyn Indie House At Embora Wellness and Movement Studio 900 Fulton Street Brooklyn, New York 11238

Monday June 18, 2007 -- The Black and Latino Filmmaker's Coalition (BLFC) will be hosting a reception during its Juneteenth Celebration to announce the new film adaptation of Akua Taylor's one woman stage play: "ASSATA: One Woman".

The reception will be held on June 23,2007 6pm at Embora Wellness and Movement Studio, 900 Fulton Street. Following the reception the Juneteenth Celebration will continue with two movie screenings 7pm DROP SQUAD and 9pm The Spook Who Sat by the Door. Admission is $7pm.

"When I got into film, these where the type of stories I wanted to make," says Babatunde Odesanya, Founder and CEO of the BLFC, "We get to tell our own stories, in our own word about our own heroes. And to do a film on Assata, I mean the community support has been overwhelming."

Akua Taylor's performance is riveting as the powerful revolutionary Assata Shakur, a former Black Panther, was involved in the May 2nd, 1973 shoot out on the New Jersey Turnpike on which left two dead; Zayd Malik Shakur and State Trooper Werner Forester.

Assata was convicted as accomplice to the murder of the Trooper and spent six and a half years in prison under brutal circumstances before escaping from the maximum security wing of the Clinton Correctional Facility for Women in New Jersey in 1979. She is currently exiled in Cuba with a bounty on $1Million for her return.

Writer, actress Akua Taylor is a Magna Cum Laude graduate of Fisk University in Nashville, TN who developed the one woman show about Shakur as a senior project. "This piece is Assata's side of the story, from her point of view." Director Robert L. Poole is a fellow graduate of Fisk who will be attending Columbia University's Film School this fall.

The Black & Latino Filmmakers Coalition was created to empower, promote, nurture and mentor Black and Latino independent directors in the growing motion picture industry.

ASSATA: One Woman will be the fourth film produced by the BLFC's Film Assist program since its founding in 2005. The first two shorts films Strong Enough and Bonchiche made it to the top 100 films in the Steven Spielberg's competition, The Lot. The third film Da Stuy: Episode 1 was released straight to DVD.

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