Affordable, Fun, Thought-Provoking: Underground Railroad Film Series, November 20

Greetings, iSchool folks. Need a break this Thursday evening? On a budget? You may enjoy this film screening on Thursday, November 20.

In my non-iSchool life (yes, I still have one and I know that you do, too) I curate the annual Langston Hughes African American Film Festival, a program of the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center. Our fall & winter Underground Railroad Film Series is a monthly event featuring cinema and conversation. Everyone is welcome.

We show many international and cross-cultural films. Past UR films have included the Uruguayan literacy/magical realism drama, Adios Momo; How Do I Look, a documentary about the African American and Latino LGBT 'drag ball' culture of Harlem, New York; Black Israel, about African American and African converts to Judaism; and When the Spirits Dance Mambo, a documentary about Santeria/Yoruba religion and Afro-Cuban musical traditions.

Join us on Thursday for two narrative films about African American and Asian American interactions:

AKIRA’S HIP-HOP SHOP

(37 mins., special public screening of the director’s cut!)



Time: 7:00 PM
Location: Hidmo Eritrean Cuisine, 2000 Jackson Street (Metro bus #14)
Admission: Suggested donation of $5.00
Filmmaker Joe Doughrity will be present for a Q&A session!

Written and directed by Joe Doughrity

Akira’s Hip Hop Shop stars James Kyson Lee (”Heroes”) and Emayatzy Corinealdi (”The Young & the Restless”).

An interracial love story about a Japanese immigrant in love with hip hop who meets a young Black woman with a passion for Asian cuisine and culture.


shown with

ELI’S LIQUOR STORE 16 mins.

Written and directed by Arnold Chun and Alonzo Jones . Co-produced by Yealee Song and Joseph H. Shim.


Set in Los Angeles’ Koreatown circa 1999. It’s the story of Elijah Gooden, a 43-year-old African-American man from Atlanta, Georgia. He graduated from Georgia Tech University and worked in corporate America before moving his family to Los Angeles to start his own business. He and his family experience culture shock and adversity as they struggle to build their livelihood in an area dominated by Asian-American business owners.