Dana Haynes<\/a> – Phone: (503) 977-4421\/e-mail: dana.haynes@pcc.edu Since its inception in 1991, the festival has been organized and run by volunteers and offered to the public free of charge.<\/p>\n NORTH PORTLAND, Ore. (Jan. 11, 2010) – By James Hill<\/p>\n A wildly popular film festival that has become synonymous with the Cascade Campus of Portland Community College turns 20 years old this February.<\/p>\n The Cascade Festival of African Films honors the art and craft of filmmaking from that continent. The movies imported for the festival draw capacity crowds every year and are shown Thursdays through Sundays at various North Portland locations through February and early March.<\/p>\n \u201cThe 20th festival will showcase 23 outstanding feature and documentary films from every region of the African continent,\u201d said Mary Holmstrom, one of the event\u2019s organizers.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a film festival with one of the largest collections of African films in the Northwest and its dedicated legion of volunteers are set to celebrate its 20th year by bringing acclaimed Ethiopian film director Haile Gerima to Portland.<\/p>\n Gerima will open the festival, which attracted more than 5,000 filmgoers in 2009, with the showing of his Toronto Film Festival selected film, \u201cTeza,\u201d at the Hollywood Theatre on Friday, Feb. 5. The film chronicles the return of an African intellectual to his country of birth during a repressive Marxist regime. Gerima is a director, screenwriter and producer, living in Washington, D.C. He is one of a handful of African filmmakers to earn international fame and has been a professor of film at Howard University since 1975.<\/p>\n The festival honoring Black History Month runs from Feb. 5 through March 6 at the Cascade Campus\u2019s Moriarty Auditorium (705 N. Killingsworth St.), McMenamins Kennedy School Theatre (5736 N.E. 33rd Ave.) and the Hollywood Theatre (4122 N.E. Sandy Blvd.). The Cascade Festival of African Films is free and open to the public. It features a wide range of films and special matinee days and feature nights. They include StudentFest Matinee on Feb. 18, Family Film Day on Feb. 20 and ends with Women\u2019s Filmmakers Week.<\/p>\n For details on the schedule, visit: www.africanfilmfestival.org<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n The film festival was founded in 1991 by four Portland Community College faculty. Approximately 400 people attended the first annual Cascade Festival of African Films. Today, more than 5,000 people attend the festival annually. Since its inception, the festival has been offered to the public free of charge and organized and run entirely by volunteers.<\/p>\n Longtime PCC English instructor Michael Dembrow (you might also know him as a member of the Oregon Legislature) said few could have predicted the all-volunteer-driven festival would hit its emerald anniversary.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you\u2019re putting on a high-quality film festival entirely with volunteers, every year is a miracle,\u201d said Dembrow, who has been with the festival since the beginning. \u201cThe response from community members has been so strong, so many people have stepped forward to help out, and PCC\u2019s support has been so solid, that we just keep on chugging along. This year\u2019s program is shaping up to be our strongest yet \u2013 the miracle continues.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2022 John Kani, a South African actor, playwright and director, will present his film, \u201cNothing But the Truth\u201d on Feb. 12. The film is an adaptation of Kani\u2019s stage play and took second place at the film festival in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.<\/p>\n \u2022 George Amponsah, a director, will present his latest documentary, \u201cThe Fighting Spirit,\u201d on Feb. 25. The film focuses on boxing in Accra, Ghana.<\/p>\n \u2022 Jos\u00e9phine Ndagnou, also a director, comes to town with her first feature-length film, \u201cParis or Nothing,\u201d on March 5. She not only directed the film, but wrote the screenplay and has a role in the film, as a woman from Cameroon who moves to Paris.<\/p>\n For more information, call (503) 244-6111, ext. 3630, or e-mail info@africanfilmfestival.org<\/a><\/p>\n Portland Community College<\/a> <\/strong>is the largest post-secondary institution in Oregon, serving approximately 86,700 full- and part-time students. It is also one of the top-20 largest employers in the Portland metro area. For more PCC news, please visit us on the Web at news.pcc.edu<\/a>. PCC has three comprehensive campuses, five workforce training and education centers, and 200 community locations in the Portland metropolitan area. The PCC district encompasses a 1,500-square-mile area in northwest Oregon and offers two-year degrees, one-year certificate programs, short-term training, alternative education, pre-college courses and life-long learning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Portland Community College\/Office of Public Affairs Dana Haynes – Phone: (503) 977-4421\/e-mail: dana.haynes@pcc.edu James Hill – Phone: (503) 977-4376\/e-mail: jghill@pcc.edu Cascade Festival of African Films turns 20 Since its inception in 1991, the festival has been organized and run by volunteers and offered to the public free of charge. Schedule: http:\/\/www.africanfilmfestival.org\/calendar\/ Photos & Poster: http:\/\/www.africanfilmfestival.org\/press\/press-downloads\/ […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":53,"menu_order":10,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-59","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.africanfilmfestival.org\/2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/59","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.africanfilmfestival.org\/2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.africanfilmfestival.org\/2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.africanfilmfestival.org\/2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.africanfilmfestival.org\/2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.africanfilmfestival.org\/2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/59\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.africanfilmfestival.org\/2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/53"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.africanfilmfestival.org\/2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nJames Hill<\/a> – Phone: (503) 977-4376\/e-mail: jghill@pcc.edu<\/p>\nCascade Festival of African Films turns 20<\/h3>\n
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Additional guests this year include:<\/h4>\n