In conjunction with the city-wide common reading program, Memphis Reads, Memphis Public Libraries is excited to host a special hybrid screening (in-person outdoors & virtual streaming) of the 2017 French documentary Ouvrir La Voix ("Speak Up"), followed by a discussion and Q&A session with the film's director, Amandine Gay, who will participate remotely from Paris.
Like this year's Memphis Reads book selection,Thick, and Other Essays by Tressie McMillan Cottom, Ms. Gay's film seeks to address issues and obstacles uniquely faced by women in her community. The film is comprised of intimate, close-up interviews with twenty-four Black French women who discuss the challenges they face in French culture, ranging from their experiences of casual racism, both personal and official, to racial stereotypes, cultural standards of beauty, and the experience of alienation and otherness. At it's core, the film resists the illusion of color blindness central to France's national self-image, and seeks to open up a voice or path to discuss issues of Afrofeminism and the Afrodiaspora. The film, an award nominee at Indie Memphis in 2018, lends an international perspective on the themes of Professor Cottom's book.
This event has been made possible by the generous sponsorship of the Memphis Library Foundation.
In conjunction with the city-wide common reading program, Memphis Reads, Memphis Public Libraries is excited to host a special hybrid screening (in-person outdoors & virtual streaming) of the 2017 French documentary Ouvrir La Voix ("Speak Up"), followed by a discussion and Q&A session with the film's director, Amandine Gay, who will participate remotely from Paris.
Like this year's Memphis Reads book selection,Thick, and Other Essays by Tressie McMillan Cottom, Ms. Gay's film seeks to address issues and obstacles uniquely faced by women in her community. The film is comprised of intimate, close-up interviews with twenty-four Black French women who discuss the challenges they face in French culture, ranging from their experiences of casual racism, both personal and official, to racial stereotypes, cultural standards of beauty, and the experience of alienation and otherness. At it's core, the film resists the illusion of color blindness central to France's national self-image, and seeks to open up a voice or path to discuss issues of Afrofeminism and the Afrodiaspora. The film, an award nominee at Indie Memphis in 2018, lends an international perspective on the themes of Professor Cottom's book.
This event has been made possible by the generous sponsorship of the Memphis Library Foundation.