A special community media event was held at Dwyer Cultural Center in Harlem by Harlem Film and Media Trust, a not-for profit program of the International Communication Association whose mission is to continue our founders’ legacy of providing training, employment and business opportunities in media-related fields to underserved young people.
The evening’s honorees were two of our community’s most outstanding innovators and pioneers; filmmakers Pearl Bowser, a director and actress, known for “That’s Black Entertainment: Westerns” (2002), “Namibia: Independence Now!” (1985) and “In the Shadow of Hollywood: Race Movies and the Birth of Black Cinema” (2007); and Stanley Nelson. Nelson began working as a television producer at PBS on the series “Listening to America With Bill Moyers.” He went on to produce and direct the 1999 Emmy-nominated documentary titled “The Black Press: Soldiers Without Swords,” and the 2000 Black International Cinema Festival award-winning documentary “Marcus Garvey: Look for Me in the Whirlwind.”
Nelson and his wife, Marcia A. Smith, also formed the nonprofit documentary film production company Firelight Media. Firelight Media received funding from “American Experience” to produce the critically acclaimed 2003 documentary “The Murder of Emmett Till.” The fi lm won several awards, including an Emmy for Best Directing-Nonfiction, the Sundance Film Festival 2003 Special Jury Prize and the George Foster Peabody Award. In addition, the U.S. Justice Department recently reopened the 1955 murder investigation of Emmett Till, citing the presence of new evidence exposed in Nelson’s documentary.
The evening’s master of ceremonies was Felipe Luciano, author, journalist and community activist.