PITT TO HOST ACCLAIMED AFRICAN-AMERICAN FILMMAKER
PITTSBURGH, Feb. 15 -- Charles Burnett, award winning director and one of the country's most significant and acclaimed African-American filmmakers, will be present for a special screening of "Nightjohn" at the University of Pittsburgh, on Saturday,
Feb. 24, at 7 p.m., in the Masonic Temple Auditorium, 7th Floor. The New Yorker hailed the 1996 film as the best American movie of the year.
Sponsored by the English Department, the Office of the Provost, and the Film Studies Program, the event is free and open to the public.
"Nightjohn," set on a Southern plantation during the 1830s, concerns a courageous self-taught slave who risks his life to teach other slaves to read and write. The film received accolades from the National Society of Film Critics.
Burnett's first film, "Killer of Sheep," (1977), has been recognized as a "national treasure" by the Library of Congress and has been placed in the National Film Registry. "To Sleep With Anger," (1990), starring Danny Glover, won three independent Spirit Awards and a Best Screenplay Award for Burnett from the National Society of Film Critics.
For more information, call Lucy Fischer at 412-624-6551 or email her at lfischer@pitt.edu, or call Andrea Campbell at 412-624-6564 or email her at acamp@pitt.edu.
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