Parrish Art Museum And Bridgehampton Child Care & Recreational Center To Host Black Film Festival

The Parrish Art Museum and the Bridgehampton Child Care & Recreational Center (BHCCRC) have partnered to present a two-day Black Film Festival this summer. The viewings will be held outdoors on the Water Mill-based museum’s terrace.

“This Black Film Festival is a perfect extension of The Center’s Thinking Forward Lecture Series,” Bonnie Michelle Cannon, Executive Director, Bridgehampton Child Care & Recreational Center, shared. “The Festival is an opportunity to shed light on different cultures and their life experiences. The only way that we are going to come together is to learn more about each other and to spend time with each other.”

The Black Film Festival Part I will be held on Friday, August 14 and Part II will take place on Friday, August 21. During both evenings, the Parrish and BHCCRC will screen a selection of award-winning feature films, documentaries, and shorts that will delve into timely topics such as systemic inequality and parallels between historical civil rights movements and today’s global movement.

“I am grateful for our ongoing partnership with BHCCRC to present this mini festival that is meant to educate, entertain, and inspire so that we all can become part of the conversation about racial inequality and social justice,” said Corinne Erni, Parrish Senior Curator of Arts Reach and Special Projects. “Films are a perfect conduit to connect us emotionally and intellectually to these issues and encourage action.”

“I am excited about the expanded partnership between The Bridgehampton Child Care & Recreational Center and The Parrish,” Cannon added. “I look forward to us working together in the future.” In the past, The Center, a not-for-profit that primarily serves, but is not limited to, the lower income African-American and Latino populations of the East End, has incorporated visits to the Parrish and art workshops led by the Museum in its After School programming.

Black Film Festival Part I will feature Gordon Quinn’s ’63 Boycott (documentary, 2016, 31 minutes) and Raoul Peck’s I Am Not Your Negro (documentary, 2016, 95 minutes).

’63 Boycott takes a look at the October 22, 1963 boycott of the Chicago Public Schools, when more than 250,000 students united to march through the city to protest racial segregation. Protestors also called for the resignation of School Superintendent Benjamin Willis, who instead of allowing students at overcrowded black schools to enroll in nearby white schools, placed trailers, dubbed ‘Willis Wagons,’ on playgrounds and parking lots.

I Am Not Your Negro, which is based on James Baldwin’s unfinished manuscript Remember this House, delves into the history of racism in the United States through the stories of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., and Medgar Evers.

Black Film Festival Part II will feature Xavier Burgin’s Other (2018, 6 minutes 20 seconds) and George Tillman Jr.’s The Hate U Give (2018, 132 minutes).

Other tells the story of a black woman who grapples with navigating white spaces following the Charlottesville, Virginia white nationalist rallies.

Based on the critically acclaimed New York Times bestseller by Angie Thomas, The Hate U Give follows Starr Carter, who lives in a poor, mostly black neighborhood, but attends a prep school with affluent, predominantly white students. Starr’s world is turned upside after witnessing her childhood best friend Khalil being fatally shot by a police officer. The Hate U Give stars Amandla Stenberg, Russell Hornsby, Regina Hall, Common, Anthony Mackie and Issa Rae.

“Please come out and support this event; I promise you it will be enlightening, thought-provoking, life changing, and just a great time for all,” Cannon concluded.

Entrance opens on both evenings at 7:30 p.m. and films will commence after dark, at approximately 8:30 p.m. Admission is $10 for Friends of BHCCRC and Parrish Members, $20 for nonmembers and free for students and children. Film-goers must register in advance, don a mask at the event and bring their own chair.

Parrish Art Museum is located at 279 Montauk Highway in Water Mill. For more information, visit parrishart.org.