The Philadelphia Premiere of NO! During Domestic Violence Awareness and Prevention Month
The Leeway Foundation and Scribe Video Center in conjunction with the Painted Bride Art Center announce and celebrate the Philadelphia premiere of NO!, Aishah Shahidah Simmons' ground-breaking documentary about intra-racial rape and healing in African-American communities. The premiere will take place on October 12, 2006 at 7:00 pm at the Painted Bride Art Center, which is located at 230 Vine Street in Philadelphia, PA.
Eleven years in the making, this feature length documentary explores how the collective silence about acts of rape and other forms of sexual assault adversely affects African-Americans, while simultaneously encouraging dialogue to bring about healing and reconciliation between all men and women. Through intimate testimonies from Black women victim/survivors, commentaries from acclaimed African-American scholars and community leaders, archival footage, spirited music, dance, and performance poetry, NO! unveils the reality of rape, other forms of sexual violence, and healing in African-American communities.
NO! features testimonials from Black women survivors who defy victimization. Violence prevention advocates, sociologists, historians, anthropologists and other leading scholars Dr. Johnnetta B. Cole (President, Bennett College for Women), Dr. Farah Jasmine Griffin (Director of the Institute for Research in African-American Studies, Columbia University), Ulester Douglas (Director of Training, Men Stopping Violence), Loretta Ross (Former Director, DC Rape Crisis Center), and Sulaiman Nuriddin (Mens Intervention Programs Manager, Men Stopping Violence) provide an interdisciplinary context with which to examine sexual violence in African-American communities. Impacting archival footage, spirited music, dance and performances from award-winning poets Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, Samiya A. Bashir, and the late Essex Hemphill take viewers on a journey from slavery through present day.
Alice Walker, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Color Purple says: "If the Black community in the Americas and in the world would save itself, it must complete the work NO! begins."
A native Philadelphian who spent eleven years, seven of which were full time, to make NO!, Aishah Shahidah Simmons is the recipient of numerous grants and awards including a major grant from the Ford Foundation to support the educational marketing and distribution of NO!, Leeway Foundation's 2005 Transformation Award for her work using film/video to create social change, and a 2005 Artist-in-Residency at Spelman College's Digital Moving Image Salon.
"In the early nineties, I learned the craft of how to use film/video to tell compelling stories at Scribe Video Center," says Simmons "I am honored that three of Philadelphia premier institutional supporters of cultural work in the Delaware Valley have joined forces to celebrate the Philadelphia premiere of NO! during Domestic Violence Awareness and Prevention Month."
Several Delaware Valley foundations and organizations have financially supported the making of NO!. They include Solutions for Progress, Inc., The Valentine Foundation, The Leeway Foundation, The Bread & Roses Community Fund, The Delaware Valley Legacy Fund of the Philadelphia Foundation, and The Women's Way Discretionary Fund.
"Aishah has created an important tool for social change. This film pushes people to think of sexual assault in complex ways, as more than one isolated act of violence. NO! is an act of brave and powerful truth-telling; it can change lives," says Kavita Rajanna, Program Director of the Leeway Foundation.
The premiere will also feature both a special award presentation from the National Sexual Violence Resource Center who will present Ms. Simmons with their 2006 National Award for Outstanding Response to and Prevention of Sexual Violence in the Media and Communications Category; and a musical performance by New Orleanian jazz musician Monica Dillon, whose song NO is featured in the documentary.
The event is free but reservations are required. Please RSVP by October 9, 2006. For more information about the event or to RSVP please email info@leeway.org or call 215.545.4078.
