Stone Center holds ?lm festival

CORRECTION: A caption accompanying this article incorrectly identified members of the “International Sweethearts of Rhythm” band as actresses. It has been changed to reflect this.

There will be a lot of firsts for Mariette Monpierre tonight.

Monpierre, the first woman to shoot a film on the island Guadeloupe, will take questions after the North Carolina premiere of Elza in the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History.

The film will be the first in the Stone Center’s 11th Diaspora Festival of Black and Independent Film.

Monpierre said this will be one of many screenings that have taken place all over the world, from India to New York.

“I believe that building an audience happens one screening at a time,” she said.

Monpierre, who was born on the Caribbean island Guadeloupe but raised in Paris, said the movie is inspired by her return to Guadeloupe to search for her father.

She said many of the facts and events were changed for the film.

“I made the ending the way I would’ve liked it to happen in real life,” Monpierre said.

After the movie, Caribbean food will be served and Monpierre will discuss issues surrounding the film with a panel of professors from UNC, N.C. State University and Bennett College.

Joseph Jordan, director of the Stone Center, said the panel will put the issues raised in the film into a Caribbean context.

“Screenings are just an entryway into a broader discussion,” he said.
Jordan said the festival will also host five other directors for discussions of their films throughout the semester.

There will also be a work-in-progress preview of “The Rosenwald Schools Film Project” by Aviva Kempner.

Clarissa Goodlett, program and public communications officer for the Stone Center, said 13 films will be screened, and the center is bringing back the “Lunch and a Movie” series.

Goodlett said the film festival brings independent films to Chapel Hill that would otherwise not be shown in the area.

“I want folks to feel like they have access to films and media that they might not normally have access to,” she said.

Jordan said the Stone Center tries to catch independent filmmakers early on, sometimes even when they’re still filming.

“We try to get into their good graces before they’re big and famous,” he said.

Monpierre said the festival has given her an opportunity to tell her story and share her culture with others.

“There are very few black women who make movies, so it’s very important that we tell our stories because no one else is going to tell them.”

Contact the desk editor at arts@dailytarheel.com.