Tony Silver, director of seminal graffiti film Style Wars, dies  by Jeff Chang,
cantstopwontstop.com/blog 
Rest In Power :: Tony Silver

The great Tony Silver.


Tony Silver passed last week after a courageous fight against brain cancer.

A few years back Henry Chalfant, Tony, and I went up to Billy Jam's radio show at KALX to talk about "Style Wars" and its impact. It tells you the kind of person that he is that after the show when the rest of us were wiped out, he was still just getting started. Although I only knew him after he was safely in the AARP target demo, I will always remember him as one of the most youthful people I've ever known.

Tony is also for me a model of an engaged aesthete. He always knew great art the instant he saw it, not a little of which he was making himself. And he didn't sit there smiling with it, he immediately became its champion. He wanted to share it. That's the way it was with graffiti.

Tony had been working as a director and actor for about a decade when he and Henry Chalfant began planting the seeds of what became "Style Wars". Graffiti was the scourge of NYC, a public nuisance and embarrassment. Yet he staked his all on the loony idea.

They ran out of money trying to shoot it. More than a few times. But to Tony, the story of hip-hop--esp. graffiti and b-boying--was like an opera . He was convinced graffiti was some of the most important art he'd ever seen--if it could survive heartless politicians, cold municipal bureaucrats, and its own internal beefs, it might change the way people saw the world.

When the movie came out on PBS, people couldn't believe he and Chalfant had glorified property crime and feckless urban youths. But for a new generation, "Style Wars" became a spark for one of the most vibrant and influential global visual art movements of the last two decades. Tony is a reason that street art lives all around the world, even fetches hundreds of thousands of dollars in rarified auctions. Elitist art historians may not give up the love now, but time will prove Tony was right.

To a man who lived deeply and always saw clearly, this one's for you, Tony.


A remembrance will be scheduled in New York for Tony on February 16th.

Donations in Tony's name may be made to the important program
(Out)Laws and Justice.  

'Africa Unite' Film Gears Up For Release
By Dream Hampton / BobMarley.com

The documentary "Africa Unite" had its official world premiere in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia this past September. Award-winning filmmaker Stephanie Black and Executive Producer Rita Marley returned to Addis, where in 2005, 300,000 people from across the globe helped the Marley family celebrate Bob Marley's 60th birthday with a massive, outdoor concert. The September 15, 2008 screening--the Ethiopian calendar is based on an ancient Egyptian system and Ethiopian dates fall seven to eight years behind western dates--was hosted by President Negasso Gidada at the National Palace and coincided with Ethiopia's celebration of the millennium.

The 2005 concert was the realization of an ambitious vision of unity building that Bob preached about when he himself performed his historic 1978 Zimbabwe concert. The Africa Unite foundation, founded by the Marley family to promote pan-Africanism, organized the week-long celebration and sponsored the attendance of students from African countries like Ghana and Kenya as well as Rastas from the countryside of Jamaica for a conference and continuing dialogue.

While the film is anchored by the marathon Marley benefit concert in historic Mesker Square in Addis Ababa, there are parallel narratives that help to create a fuller picture of Bob Marley's personal dream of a Pan-African movement on the continent and throughout the Diaspora.

Ras "Bongo" Tawney, featured in Black's award winning documentary "Life and Debt," begins his sojourn in the humble hills of Jamaica, complete with a Nyabingi send off. "I will tell the whole Rasta community [of my trip]," he promises as his neighbors line the countryside dirt road to see his cab off. His journey is a spiritual one and brings him to tears often.

"It meant so much to me that Ras Tawney was able to make the trip," says Stephanie Black. "It was really more of a sojourn. It meant everything to him, as you can see in the film. If there had been money to send his wife and family, I'm absolutely certain his trip would have been one way."

Tawney's recollections of the early and severe discrimination that Rastas faced on the island make clear how far the Rastafarian movement has really traveled. He remembers when merely wearing dreadlocks was considered not fashion, but a crime. Ironically, even when a group of Rastas who'd traveled from Shashamane, a village in the interior of Ethiopia that HIM Selassie gifted to a community of Rasta repatriates, to the airport in Addis to greet Mother Cedella Booker for the February 2005 celebration, they were turned away by airport security. "I didn't include it in the film," says Black. "But it was a reminder of the struggle Rastas have in terms of discrimination. That's why the screening at the Palace [in September of ‘08] was so important. Rita invited the entire Shashamane community and the respect and love the President showed them was such an honor, so healing. After the film, President Gidada told us Africa Unite would be screened at schools throughout the country, that'd it would be used as an educational tool to teach children about Bob and the Rastafarian movement."

In addition to the concert, Africa Unite hosted a week of symposiums on the history of the Pan African movement and workshops for the dozens of young grassroots organizers and students from all over the continent. As teenagers from Ghana seek out fellow students from South Africa and Rwanda and exchange personal narratives about their homes and lives and their visions of the future, it becomes clear how meaningful their interaction is. "Because of the history of colonization, and the carving up of different countries, it's been impractical for Africans to travel within Africa. West Africans literally had to fly to Paris or London to get to the South Africa or Kenya," explains Black. "What was so beautiful is the way they'd initially introduce themselves through the arts---through music and dance. It was their calling card, their name tags literally became their national dance and song. These kids were young and earnest but they understood themselves to be future leaders."

Footage from these workshops and symposiums go further still in demonstrating the amount of education and organizing necessary to rebuild a present day movement that reclaims the mid 20th century goals of leaders like Jomo Kenyatta and Haili Sellassie. Black includes archival footage of Sellassie's historical, controversial speech delivered to the League of Nations the summer of 1936 when Italy was beginning its illegal invasion of Ethiopia. The only country unconquered by colonialists, Africa Unite offers a concise history lesson on Ethiopia and its revered place as a thoroughly independent nation. During the weeklong Africa Unite festival Bob Marley's son Ziggy visits the Organization of African Unity, established in 1963 in Addis Ababa when Emperor Selassie I convened 32 African independent states. Though disbanded in 2002 by South African President Mbeki and replaced by the African Union, Ziggy tells crew members he still "feels the history" of the landmark.

Black acknowledges the challenge of presenting a truncated history of the vast diasporic Pan African movement that inspired Bob Marley's "Africa Unite." Instead of a biopic about Marley, she chose instead to explore the ideas that inspired him. "There's not an artist in the world who is both the commercial success and the inspiration that Bob is…We approached thisfilm not as a way to gaze upon Bob, but to direct the viewer's gaze on the things that were important to Bob: His Majesty, Ethiopia, a united Diasporic movement."

The Africa Unite Foundation will hold its 4th Annual Conference in Kingston on Bob Marley's birthday February 6, 2008. The film "Africa Unite" will make its premiere in Jamaica during the conference, and the DVD of the film will be available for wide release in early February.

Until then, stay tuned to Bobmarley.com to see trailers, outtakes and extras from the film prior to its wide release.

source: http://www.bobmarley.com

A YOUNG FILM MAKER
Based on a True Story

 By DAVID M. HALBFINGER / New York Times

 Published: December 27, 2007

 LOS ANGELES — At home, in gang territory near the 10 freeway, Malcolm Mays, 17, sleeps on the faded carpet of his grandmother’s living room.

For the last week or so, however, he’s been sleeping as often as not in an editing room on the Sony Pictures lot in Culver City, crashing there late at night after viewing rushes of the movie that he is shooting by day.

To a degree that would make any adult desperate to get into the film industry jealous, he has mustered the support of studio executives, a powerful producer and a top talent agent. It would be easy to tell this as the story of a bunch of Hollywood people doing a good deed in time for Christmas, except that it isn’t. They all say they hope to get as much out of Mr. Mays as he gets out of them.

When he was in the eighth grade, Mr. Mays says, he told his friends he would become rich and famous making movies one day — he hoped to use his money and fame to “make a difference” somehow — and that he’d have his first movie out before he turned 18. “They all laughed,” he said.

A year later he entered Fairfax High School, where the racial tension among students bused in from far and wide was a jarring contradiction to its upscale West Hollywood neighborhood. That fall he was caught up in a black-and-Hispanic melee. A friend was attacked with a knife; Mr. Mays says he saw the assailant lunging and headed him off with a punch. His mother abruptly transferred him to another school. The violence continued without him. Three of his best friends, he said, were killed that year.

But Mr. Mays had found his movie. He banged out a screenplay that year and gave it the name of his main character: Trouble, a boy who means well but always gets into jams, who does the wrong thing for the right reasons. An incorrigible Romeo, Mr. Mays gave his alter ego a Juliet: the sister of a Mexican-American gang member. And he imagined an ending in which the cycle of violence between black and Hispanic teenagers might be broken, after a shocking, sorrowful twist. He bounced from school to school, finishing 9th grade at a community magnet; 10th grade at Dorsey High in South-Central, where his father is a coach; then, at his mother’s insistence, another move, to University High in West Los Angeles, which was safer but a long bus ride from home.

He never stopped pursuing film. When the producer Peter Guber of Mandalay Entertainment spoke at his church, Mr. Mays, a leader of the youth ministry, wangled a meeting. That didn’t go anywhere. But when he injured his leg at Dorsey, the athletic trainer mentioned that his wife worked for Martin Campbell, the director of “Casino Royale,” and Mr. Mays soon had an internship in Mr. Campbell’s office on the Sony lot.

At 15, he co-directed the first of several dramatic shorts, “Open Door,” which was accepted to a Los Angeles short film festival. At 16 his script and plans for “Trouble” were recognized by Panavision’s highly selective New Filmmaker Program, which lets novice directors borrow a camera package.

He just needed a plan to put its camera to use.

Last year he signed up for a mentor program at University High that is run by the United Talent Agency. Howard Sanders, of the agency’s book department, commended Mr. Mays for his interest in a film career. Mr. Mays corrected him.

“He says: ‘It’s not what I want to do, it’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to make a movie,’” Mr. Sanders recalled. “He knew exactly what he wanted, and nothing was going to stop him.”

The mentor quickly found himself more inspired by the teenager than the other way around. “I learned so much about who I want to be from Malcolm,” said Mr. Sanders, who is 48. “This kid, obstacles are thrown in his way, and yet he remains utterly positive, passionate and confident in his abilities.”

Mr. Sanders introduced Malcolm to DeVon Franklin, a junior executive in Sony’s development department and one of the few African-American executives at any studio. In this “scrawny little kid,” Mr. Franklin said, he saw a glimmer of hope for a new generation of black filmmakers.

Mr. Sanders also pointed Mr. Mays to Todd Black, a producer of the feel-good, true-life movies “The Pursuit of Happyness” and “The Great Debaters,” who had discovered another eventual movie subject, Antwone Fisher, when he was a security guard. Mr. Black too was blown away.

“I never met a kid that age who was that in command of, and secure with, who he was and what he needed and wanted,” Mr. Black said. “He really made me listen to what he was saying, quickly and efficiently. He wanted to get his scripts made into movies, he wanted to go to U.S.C. film school, he wanted a career in the business. He wanted to lift himself out of the situation he was in. He’s almost entrepreneurial. He knew exactly how to work it, but not in an obnoxious way. In a very professional, proper way.”

Mr. Black steered Malcolm to Gary Martin, the president for studio operations at Sony, who said he was reminded of a 21-year-old John Singleton making “Boyz N the Hood.” “You just got the feeling this kid’s got the same kind of chutzpah,” Mr. Martin said. He laid down one condition for helping Malcolm: “Trouble” must have its premiere on the Sony lot.

Cynthia Mays, Mr. Mays’s mother, is usually in charge of bringing food to the set of “Trouble.”

Mr. Martin got Kodak to donate 50,000 feet of film, about $25,000 worth. He also made a call to Panavision when, according to Mr. Mays, it threatened to cancel the New Filmmaker Program in response to the Hollywood work stoppage. The result? “I had Bob Beitcher, the C.E.O. of Panavision, calling me in my third-period class, assuring me I’d have a camera,” Mr. Mays said.

As Christmas vacation approached, Mr. Mays was a walking whirlwind at his school, lining up actors, hiring a tiny crew, obtaining permits and insurance, putting out one fire after another as problems arose, even while taking his exams. He planned to begin shooting on Monday, Dec. 17, with exteriors at Fairfax High.

But at 3:10 p.m. the Friday before, he learned that his permission had been revoked. An assistant principal at Fairfax, David Siedelman, had just found out that Mr. Mays hadn’t yet graduated.

“You were very professional, I agree,” Mr. Siedelman told Mr. Mays. “You convinced me that hey, you were a former student, an alumni here. You never said you were still a high school student.”

Mr. Mays politely said that Mr. Siedelman had never asked, and that he’d never lied. But Mr. Siedelman said his decision was final and wished him luck.

“As usual, things crash down, right?” Mr. Mays said as he hung up. “But we’ll pick ’em back up.”

True to his word, as night fell that Friday, Mr. Mays bought time by rearranging his production schedule to start with interiors. One of Mr. Black’s location managers began making calls on his behalf to other Los Angeles schools, hoping to find one to replace Fairfax. Mr. Mays raced across Hollywood with a $500 deposit to release the camera from Panavision. And a giant lighting truck with a generator in tow rumbled up to his grandmother’s tiny house, vainly searching for a safe place to park. (Mr. Black and Mr. Martin wrote personal checks for $850 apiece when Mr. Mays couldn’t come up with the truck insurance fast enough, the only cash his powerful supporters have laid out on his behalf.)

He also stopped at Sony to meet with a postproduction supervisor about the arduous editing and mixing process. The supervisor asked if Mr. Mays had a deadline in mind, say, for submission to a film festival.

“I’d like to get it done by Feb. 14,” Mr. Mays replied softly. That’s when he’ll turn 18.

Marvin X Reviews "The Great Debaters"    

This is a coming of age film of the North American African Nation. It is about a people regaining their consciousness after decades of obscurity. This film puts them back properly in the time and space of history, for they present themselves as a civilized people, the children and the adults, thus making it a movie on the goodness of life and the power of consciousness to reveal the very best of a people, thus regaining their self respect before the world community.

It shows the intelligence and leadership of American African youth-- of  adult leadership and intelligence as well, including the radical activist tradition in North American African History.   Every North American African, every Pan African, can be proud that Oprah Winfrey and Denzil Washington produced this. Perhaps we have reached that moment in time when our people have no choice but to be their true selves, their best selves.   For the first time in a long time, we see the intellectual genius of a people during the turbulent 1930s.

This should be a lesson to all North American Africans that we have a dignified liberation tradition to uphold, thus we cannot sink into the morass of today, but in the manner of this film, take a great leap forward into dignity, respect, and intelligent behavior.  

As a people, we must be proud of the young performers in this drama. They have exhibited the very best in us as human beings, as African people. The children teach us and themselves in this movie. They teach us the worst in human consciousness with their remarks on a lynching.   They repeatedly show us the power of using the black mind for intellectual dexterity rather than barbarity .   This film is in the genre of Akila and the Bee, except that it goes deeper socially, intellectually, historically and spiritually. While it reveals the utter racism and white supremacy of this nation, it also depicts the resistance and transcendence to this unique American evil, especially in the present era.   The music is excellent, the visuals as well, including the acting and dance, giving us a sense of the ritual life of our people during the 1930s.

The young character Henry who became a debater after a riotous life is exemplary and a clear example to other wayward youth struggling to survive in the hoods of America . You can come up if you get up! Yes, it takes energy: the same energy it takes to stay down it takes to get up!


    Denzil Washington must be given kudos for his role as Melvin Tolson, the great poet of our people. Denzil proves his acting ability in presenting Tolson as the intellectual/activist, a tradition often represented by the artists/activists of the 1960s. But in the character of poet Tolson, we see the roots of the Black Arts Movement artist/activism that would emerge in the 60s with Amiri Baraka , Sonia Sanchez, Askia Toure,Larry Neal, Marvin X, Haki Madhubuti, Ed Bullins, June Jordan and others. 

But this tradition had its origins in the Harlem Renaissance of the 20s, and the poets, writers, and artists of the 30s, 40s and 50s, from Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, Richard Wright, James Baldwin, Sterling Brown, Gwen Brooks, Ralph Ellison and others.  

Forest Whitaker as the senior James Farmer maintained a certain dignity early on that his character revealed late  in The Deacons, his character kept its self respect when confronted by white racists after he accidentally ran over their hog. This scene is a survival lesson for young black men. It tells young black men on the street and in the schools and colleges that they must pass the tone test when confronted by police: depending on their tone of voice, they can be killed, arrested or released.   But imagine, so-called Negroes having an intellectual debate, even a team of debaters with a coach who apprises them on the Willie Lynch syndrome, who tells them straight out white supremacy has them insane, thus confirming the sister who says it is not white supremacy but white lunacy, thus we are victims of an insanity far beyond the economic implications. I love James Baldwin’s quote, “It’s a wonder we haven’t all gone stark raving mad,” dealing with white supremacy for four hundred years.

The Debaters is a hopeful sign that we can and shall overcome, that we can and shall regain our collective sanity.. The next session of the Pan African Mental Health Peer Group will be this Saturday, January 12, 4 pm, in the Upper Room of the Black Repertory Group Theatre, 3201 Adeline Street, Berkeley, one block south of the Ashby BART station. Call 510-355-6339.  You are invited!

Dr. Marvin X’s recent book is HOW TO RECOVER FROM THE ADDICTION TO WHTIE SUPREMACY, Black Bird Press, POB 1317, Paradise CA 95967 , $19.95.   “He’s the new Malcolm X! Nobody’s going to talk out loud about his book, but they’ll hush hush about it. It’s very straight and plain. They talked about the things I wrote in my book, but wait til you read Marvin’s.” --Jerri Lange, author of Jerri, A Woman’s Life in the Media