Hip Hop in Cuba & Black Germans on German Colonialism
Short Radiography of Hip Hop in Cuba (2004) and The Maji-Maji Readings (2006) are two important documentary films by young Cuban film maker, Ricardo Bacallao, who recently arrived in the United States from Berlin.
Using two very different cultural phenomena, hip hop music in Cuba and the work of the Abok Ensemble, a prominent Afro-German theater group in Berlin, Bacallao comments on the status of Blacks in both societies with equal authority. Each film is an entity unto itself, portraying very different manifestations of racism. Together, they present a powerful message of profound social and cultural significance to American audiences.
Born in Havana, Cuba, filmmaker Ricardo Bacallao graduated in from the Instituto Superior de Arte (ISA) as a Director of TV, Radio, and Film. He is a member of the Cuban Association of Young Creators (AHS) and the National Movement of Video. Bacallao is a screenwriter and cameraman as well as painter and sculptor.
The screening of the documentaries are followed by a discussion with Ricardo Bacallao.
Co-sponsored by: Social Thought and Political Economy Program (STPEC), DEFA Film Library, Max Kade Foundation, Center for Racial Politics Working Group, Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies (CLACLS), W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies, and the Women’s Studies Program at UMass Amherst.