Office of the Secretary of State: Newark Black Film Festival is Proud to Relive Cinematic History with Hallelujah! –
- One of the First All-Black Films Produced by a Major Studio

FROM THE OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF STATE

July 16, 2008

Trenton, NJ – Secretary of State Nina Mitchell Wells is proud to announce the continuation of the 2008 Newark Black Film Festival (NBFF) Thursday, July 17, beginning at 6 p.m. in the State Museum Auditorium with the presentation of Hallelujah!; a timeless cinematic breakthrough achievement in Black cinema and one of the first all-black films to be produced by a major studio.

Admission for the 2008 Newark Black Film Festival is free.

The co-hosts for the evening will be the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. (Trenton Alumnae Chapter), the New Jersey Martin Luther King, Jr. Commemorative Commission, and the New Jersey Office of Faith Based Initiatives.

Released in 1929, Hallelujah! chronicles the experiences of a protagonist named Zeke, a sharecropper involved in a complicated, tumultuous relationship with a beautiful dancer named Chick, who certainly does not have his best interests at heart. After a quest to restart his life, Zeke moves on, joins the ministry and finds new love. Upon his return, Zeke reencounters Chick who, despite her proclamations to the contrary, hasn’t truly changed her ways, thus leaving Zeke’s life as complicated as ever.

The special guest speaker for the evening is renowned African American film historian and author Donald Bogle, a foremost expert on early 20th Century Black cinema, and former professor of media and culture at Rutgers University and the University of Pennsylvania. He book, “Dorothy Dandridge: A Biography” was released to critical acclaim in 1997.

The 2008 Newark Black Film Festival will continue to run Thursday evenings through July 31 and, in all, feature twelve unique works on differing aspects of the African American experience, in addition to eleven other presentations in youth cinema throughout afternoon hours for children.

Made possible by a grant from Bank of America, the Festival is celebrating its thirty-fourth year as the oldest running black film festival in the United States. Dating back to 1974, and growing considerably thanks to the generous support of Bank of America, the Festival expanded to Trenton under the auspices of the New Jersey State Museum in 2003; to Asbury Park, presented by the Monmouth County Arts Council, in 2005; and this year to Camden, presented by Rutgers University – Camden Center for the Arts.

For more information on the history of the Newark Black Film Festival, locations, times and descriptions of the films and their filmmakers, and a list of keynote speakers for this year’s Festival, visit http://www.newarkmuseum.org, http://www.newjerseystatemuseum.org, http://www.monmoutharts.org, and http://www.rutgerscamdenarts.org, respectively.