COCKTAILS & CINEMA: Chapter & Verse
Saturday, June 24, 2017
Redhouse Theater, 201 S West St, Syracuse, NY 13202
CHAPTER & VERSE
Directed by Jamal Joseph, 97 min., USA
Join ImageNation for cocktails, cinema and music by DJ K. Black at this special screening of the Black independent film Chapter & Verse featuring Omari Hardwick (Power, Being Mary Jane), Loretta Divine (The Carmichael Show, Being Mary Jane), Selenis Leyva (Orange is the New Black) and starring Daniel Beaty and Khadim Diop.
ImageNation is a Harlem-based film and culture company founded by Syracusan and Nottingham/SU graduate, Moikgantsi "Contsee" Kgama.
Film Synopsis:
After serving eight years in prison, reformed gang leader S. Lance Ingram re-enters society and struggles to adapt to a changed Harlem. Living under the tough supervision of a parole officer in a halfway house, he is unable to find a job that will let him use the technological skills he gained in prison. Lance is forced to take a job delivering for a food pantry where he befriends Ms. Maddy (Loretta Devine), a strong and spirited grandmother, and assumes responsibility for her 15-year-old grandson Ty, a promising student who is pulled into a dangerous street gang. When gang members decide to punish Ty for disobeying the “law of the streets,” Lance risks sacrificing his “second chance” at freedom so that Ty can have a “first chance” at a better life. View trailer.
About the Director:
Jamal Joseph is a full Professor of Professional Practice and former chair of Columbia University’s Graduate Film Program. He is the Executive Artistic Director of New Heritage Theater and Films and the Founder of the acclaimed Impact Repertory Youth Theater of Harlem. He is an alum of the Sundance Directing Lab and the Third World Newsreel Film and Video Workshop. He serves on the advisory boards of the Tribeca Film Institute, ImageNation, the Ghetto Film School and the Maysles Film Institute.
Jamal credits his time spent in the Black Panther Party and Leavenworth Federal Prison as the fire the forged his creative sword. While in prison he earned two college degrees, wrote five plays, two volumes of poetry and founded a ground breaking theater company that brought prisoners together who previously been divided by race, culture and violence.