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For Muta’Ali, his copy of “With Ossie and Ruby: In This Life Together” is more than a 496-page autobiography written by his grandparents.Published in 1998, it is a look back at Ossie Davis’s and Ruby Dee’s career as the first African-American couple on the stage and screen. It is an exploration of their lasting love, infectious art and unwavering activism. And, for seven years, Muta’Ali refused to read it.
“I made a conscious decision to put this book away,” he said on Monday during a telephone interview from New Rochelle, New York. “When and if they were gone and I missed them and I wanted to talk to them again, I could at least hear their voices through these unheard words. Save myself a little treat.”
He took a deep breath. “In hindsight, that was a mistake.”
When Mr. Davis died in 2005 at age 87, Muta’Ali was devastated. Not long after, he dug out the book, seeking solace in his grandfather’s memories—imagining the 6 foot 3 inch tall man he knew telling these stories in person with his big, boisterous laugh. Comfort eventually came, he recalled, as did countless questions and a deep regret.
So, in 2011, the budding filmmaker sat down with his strict, yet humorous, grandmother—or, as he affectionately calls her, “GramRuby”—and turned on his camera.
She did not disappoint, he said.
The result, “Life’s Essentials with Ruby Dee,” will close the ninth annual African American Film Festival next weekend—four days of screenings, live jazz, spoken word and panel discussions hosted by the Southampton African American Museum, from Thursday, October 2, through Sunday, October 5, at the Southampton Arts Center and the Southampton Cultural Center.
Since its modest beginnings, the festival—which is geared toward audiences of all races, not just African-American—has only continued to grow. This year, a handful of shorts and six features will screen, starting on Thursday night with Sundance and Cannes Film Festival award-winner “Fruitvale Station,” which is based on the events that led to the death of Oscar Grant, a young man killed by a police officer in California.
“This ties in with what happened in Ferguson,” explained festival founder and Southampton native Brenda Simmons, referring to the fatal August shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, by a white police officer. “The big question everyone in the African-American community is asking is, ‘What the hell is going on?’ And I’m sure other people are looking and saying the same thing. It’s time to talk about the elephant in the room. It’s time for people to raise their voice.”
Hip-hop poet J. Ivy has made a living out of doing just that. He commands attention while he performs, made famous during his three appearances on HBO’s “Def Poetry Jam” and through his work with rappers Kanye West & Jay-Z. He spits his verses with feeling, a fire his high school English teacher unleashed two decades ago.
It was just a routine high school assignment, J. Ivy recalled last week during a telephone interview, that led to his first show. It was a love poem to a girl in college that led to his second. But by this time, the shy writer had come out of his shell. He was confident. And he was looking for the stage.
“I felt like I found my cape,” said J. Ivy, who will perform on Friday, October 3, during the evening of spoken word and jazz. “I was able to fly and I was so free. I’m definitely a hip-hop baby, that’s my love and that’s the art I gravitate to the most. But when it came time for me to express myself, poetry was natural. I just stayed in my lane.”
As he toured around Chicago in the early days, and as he travels across the country today, J. Ivy said he is always conscious of the invisible target on his back, living as an African-American man in America. When he sees the police, he said he gets nervous. He is constantly looking over his shoulder.
“I remember one time, I was having a good time freshman year in college, and I got up one morning to use the public bathroom in the dorm,” he said. “I walk in and on the bathroom stall, in big, black, bold letters, it said, ‘N---er go home.’ I was just so thrown off by it, so enraged by it, so upset and violated. I never got how someone could look at me and hate me.”
He paused, and continued, “At the core of all of us, we’re connected. We all have the spirit and the energy that connects us all. I’ve always felt we hate out of fear and fear stems from not understanding. The more we’re able to break down those barriers, we’ll be able to understand one another more.”
Hatred and prejudice is alive and well—on the East End, evidenced by recruitment material recently distributed by members of a North Carolina-based branch of the Ku Klux Klan in Hampton Bays—and the only way to fight back against it is via education, according to Ms. Simmons, by opening up a dialogue and breaking the tension.
Next week, filmmaker Anne Makepeace plans to sit down with a producer to discuss a potential project with the Shinnecock Indian Nation, following her most recent film “We Still Live Here (Âs Nutayuneân)”—a story of cultural revival by the Wampanoag of southeastern Massachusetts as they rediscover their native language—which will screen on Sunday, October 5, during the festival.
“I had a very scary meeting in October 2007,” Ms. Makepeace recalled on Monday during a telephone interview, “in which I described to the tribe what I hoped to do. Most people spoke in favor of the idea, but there were others who said, ‘Why should we expose ourselves in this way?’ Some felt it was embarrassing. But it was mostly about trust, letting an outsider in to tell their story. It was an amazing, unforgettable moment when they voted unanimously to participate in the project.”
She filmed the tribe for almost three years—the same length of time Muta’Ali spent researching his grandparents, conducting 67 interviews from New York and Georgia to Tennessee to Texas, and editing approximately 1,000 hours of footage. He learned about his GramRuby’s relationship with his grandfather, the influence she had on the television and film industry, her undying fight for civil rights, and the true essence of the woman behind it all.
Among the likes of Harry Belafonte and Danny Glover—who appear in the film—Ms. Dee watched the first part of “Life’s Essentials with Ruby Dee” during her 90th birthday celebration at Harlem’s Schomburg Center—the American Negro Theater just downstairs, where she got her start as an actor.
“You ever get a photograph in your mind? I will never forget this night,” Muta’Ali said. “At the end, she stood up and started clapping. She looked so proud. I was really nervous because this was in front of 400 people, her friends. It’s a very personal story and we didn’t want her to kick our behinds. When she stood up, that was a relief in so many ways.”
Just days before the final, 86-minute cut released, Ms. Dee died on June 11 at age 91, surrounded by family. And, now, walking through her home in New Rochelle—perusing the movie posters and playbills, which carry such an enormous weight and importance that he finally understands—Muta’Ali has no regrets.
The ninth annual African American Film Festival “Raise Your Voice” will kick off with a screening of “Fruitvale Station” and a panel discussion on Thursday, October 2, from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Southampton Arts Center. Tickets are $10. The festival will continue on Friday, October 3, with an evening of spoken word and jazz from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Southampton Cultural Center. Tickets are $25. Film screenings will be held on Saturday, October 4, from 1 to 8:45 p.m. at the Southampton Arts Center and Sunday, October 5, starting at 2 p.m. at the Southampton Arts Center. Admission is a suggested $10 donation per film. For more information, visit southamptonafricanamericanmuseum.org.
on Sep 23, 2014