ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, March 17, 1997 TAG: 9703170084
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: TODD JACKSON THE ROANOKE TIMES
Despite the change of venue, the African- American Film Festival drew an enthusiastic 100 participants.
Roanoke's first African-American Film Festival went on as planned Sunday, and the man who helped organize it was satisfied enough with the turnout to point toward next year.
LeRoy Lowe and a woman he shares a house with in Northwest Roanoke, Hidassah Stowe, came up with the idea months ago. They decided to wrap the festival around pioneer black filmmaker Oscar Micheaux, who made a movie at a home on Gilmer Avenue in Roanoke in 1922.
It seemed like a great idea, but late last month the national NAACP announced a boycott of hotel chains because of minority hiring practices - a boycott that left festival organizers in a predicament: The event was to be held at the Hotel Roanoke and Conference Center, which is owned by Doubletree Hotels Inc., one of the companies being boycotted.
The festival's multiethnic board voted to move the event to the Jefferson Center several blocks away.
Lowe and Stowe knew it was a setback.
So Sunday they did the only thing they could: They treated the 100 or so who attended the festival to a day of entertainment and education.
"We wanted to provide a forum for the community," Lowe said, "something that would bring people together to talk about important issues."
To do that, the festival offered one of the country's leading Micheaux scholars, Aukram Burton, a professor at the University of North Carolina. Other speakers included well-known civil rights lawyer Oliver Hill, who as a boy appeared in Micheaux's Roanoke movie, "The House Behind the Cedars"; and Klaus Phillips, professor of film at Hollins College.
Sandwiched between the speakers were showings of black films, most produced by or related to Micheaux. "The House Behind the Cedars" wasn't shown because there's no known copy of it in existence. But a Micheaux remake - "The Veiled Aristocrat" - was one of those featured.
Burton didn't lose the chance to compare the festival's rocky beginning to the struggles of Micheaux, who financed controversial pictures on a shoestring budget at a time when blacks were being portrayed as illiterate, lazy and oversexed by the white-owned world of Hollywood.
But Micheaux prevailed, Burton said.
He was the only black producer to make the transition from silent films to those with sound. He made close to 50 films, many dealing with subjects such as interracial romances and the mistreatment of blacks.
In fact, Micheaux made a movie that rebutted the way African-Americans were portrayed in one of the most influential pictures of all time, D.W. Griffith's "Birth of a Nation."
Burton said Griffith's movie - endorsed by President Woodrow Wilson and the U.S. Congress - was "a recruitment film for the Klan and still is."
Micheaux's answer, "Within our Gates," reverses many of the stereotypical images in Griffith's film.
"Oscar Micheaux was a filmmaker when we needed to have an African-American voice," Burton said. "He fought for equal representation."
People in the audience, which included blacks and whites, appreciated the informative, up-front approach of the festival.
"This area is too tractor-pull anyway," said Bill Hammond of Roanoke. "We need more things like this. I just wish more people would have shown up."
About halfway through the festival's eight-hour schedule, Francis Wilson of Roanoke said he was enjoying the format.
He planned to stay the entire day, but said the festival may be too long for some. He also said the organizers should work with civic groups and schools to build support.
LeRoy Lowe, who did a little of everything Sunday, from announcing guests to ushering people to their seats, said the organizers were hoping for a crowd of 200.
But he wasn't unhappy with the 100 who had shown up by 4 p.m.
"You've got to start somewhere," he said.
LENGTH: Medium: 79 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: DON PETERSEN THE ROANOKE TIMES. Master of Ceremoniesby CNBAukram Burton talks with the audience Sunday before the first film.
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