The Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival has unveiled the inaugural schedule and opened on-line pre-registration.
The Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival, which will be held at the Japanese American National Museum in downtown Los Angeles, June 12-June 15, 2008, celebrates storytelling of the Mixed racial and cultural experience including that of transracial/cultural adoption and interracial/cultural relationships.
The Festival, a fiscally sponsored project of From the Heart Productions, a non-profit organization, is an inclusive event targeting the growing population of multiracial and multicultural individuals. The Festival brings together film and book lovers, innovative artists, and families interested in the Mixed racial and cultural experience.
Today, 7 percent of all marriages are interracial, according to the Census. More than 6.8 million individuals identify as Mixed.
The Festival highlights include:
Acclaimed author Rebecca Walker will present the Opening Address for the kick-off Loving Day party, celebrating the Supreme Court decision which affirmed the right of people of different races to marry, on June 12, 2008 at 6pm. DJ Life and DJ Vika spin decades of dance floor classics.
Hapa artist and filmmaker Kip Fulbeck will receive the Festival’s inaugural award for inspirational storytelling of the Mixed experience during the Friday night Award Presentation.
Sundee Frazier, recipient of the Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Award, will read from her children's book Brendan Buckley’s Universe and Everything In It.
Crossing the Line: Multiracial Comedians (producers Teja Arboleda and Darby Li Po Price), a celebrated feature documentary, will close the Festival screenings.
The Festival includes author readings by memoirist Lori Tharps (Kinky Gazpacho: Life, Love & Spain Simon & Schuster); poet Neil Aitken (Winner of the Philip Levine Prize, The Lost Country of Sight, Anhinga Press forthcoming), and non-fiction writer Kim-Marie Walker (Zebras from Heaven: Celebrating Interethnic Relationships) among others.
The Festival will also screen a series of acclaimed films including: Octavio Warnock-Graham’s award-winning documentary Silences, Yohei Suzuki’s documentary Our Pride: The Spirits of Black Japanese in Georgia, and Dawn Green’s NoHo, PA, a feature film for all ages.
All the events are free and open to the public. Pre-registration is strongly encouraged. On-line registration is now open at www.mixedrootsfilmandliteraryfestival.org.
Festival partners include: Japanese American National Museum Association for MultiEthnic Americans, Multiracial Americans of Southern California, iPride, and Loving Day.
