Thanks to everyone for coming out and seeing a tremendous film, Faubourg Tremé, along with great presentations by
Linda Tillery and the Culture Heritage Choir
and OPC's Frederick Douglass Youth Ensemble!

We appreciate your continued support!
   

    

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE	CONTACT: Laurie Cahn
PHOTOS AVAILABLE	Ph: 415-824-2857 (h) ² 415-608-4092 (c)
INTERVIEWS AVAILABLE	lcsf@sonic.net

 Memphis Minnie’s Bar-b-que Joint of San Francisco Presents

EXCLUSIVE EAST BAY SCREENING

AWARD-WINNING NEW DOCUMENTARY ABOUT

HISTORIC NEW ORLEANS NEIGHBORHOOD AND ITS MUSIC

Screening and Discussion with Iconic

New Orleans Newspaperman and Author Lolis Eric Elie

Special Appearance by Linda Tillery and the Cultural Heritage Choir

All proceeds benefit the Oakland Public Conservatory of Music.

OAKLAND—The winner of “Best Documentary” at the 2008 San Francisco Film Festival, Faubourg Tremé: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans gives viewers a riveting introduction to of a little-known part of American history set in the fascinating New Orleans neighborhood where jazz was born.

Scheduled to coincide with the fourth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, this exclusive, one-night-only event is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Saturday, August 29, at the Kaiser Center Auditorium, 300 Lakeside Drive, 2nd Floor. On hand to discuss the film with audiences will be its co-producer, co-writer and central narrator, nationally renowned New Orleans newspaperman Lolis Eric Elie. Director Dawn Logsdon and producer Lucie Faulknor will also bring their perspective and expertise to the panel discussion.

Linda Tillery and the Cultural Heritage Choir will make a special appearance. Also featured are the Oakland Public Conservatory Youth Marimba Band and The Frederick Douglass Youth Ensemble.

All proceeds benefit the Oakland Public Conservatory of Music, the East Bay’s leading source for affordable music education and performance for local youth and families. The event is made possible by Memphis Minnie’s Bar-b-que Joint of San Francisco, which Gourmet Magazine said “may well be the finest barbeque restaurant in the state.”

“American music would undoubtedly don a different swagger without the city of New Orleans, and the Tremé district in particular,” said Angela Wellman, founding director of the Oakland Public Conservatory of Music. “This event is a perfect opportunity for our community to celebrate jazz and the city that birthed it, and to support the Conservatory’s efforts to nurture jazz study, scholarship, and appreciation for generations to come.”

Arguably the oldest black neighborhood in America, Faubourg Tremé was home to the largest community of free black people in the Deep South during slavery. In the film – which critics have called “revelatory” and “flat-out brilliant” – Elie takes audiences on a tour of his city, and explains why this most un-American of American cities must be saved. But the neighborhood’s recovery after Katrina is just another chapter in its singular history.

“In the early 1800s, while most African Americans in the South were toiling on plantations, free black people in Tremé were publishing poetry and conducting symphonies,” Elie said. “Long before Rosa Parks, Tremé leaders organized sit-ins and protests that successfully desegregated the city's streetcars and schools. And jazz, the area's greatest gift to America, was born from the embers of this first American Civil Rights movement.”

The mission of the Oakland Public Conservatory of Music is to connect East Bay youth and their families the world-class instruction and performance of private conservatories at affordable rates. The Oakland Public Conservatory of Music exists to provide local audiences access to and an appreciation of our rich, shared and diverse American musical heritage.

Faubourg Tremé: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans was executive produced by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer/musician Wynton Marsalis and Stanley Nelson (Jonestown, Murder of Emmett Till); directed by Dawn Logsdon; co-directed and written by Lolis Eric Elie; produced by Lucie Faulknor, Lolis Eric Elie and Dawn Logsdon; edited by Dawn Logsdon, Sam Green (Weather Underground) with original music composed by Derrick Hodge (of Terrence Blanchard’s Band).

To view a trailer or for more information about the film, go to   "http://www.tremedoc.com" www.tremedoc.com.

This film is a co-production of Serendipity Films, LLC, Independent Television Service (ITVS), WYES-TV12 New Orleans and Louisiana Pubic Broadcasting (LPB) in association with the National Black Programming Consortium (NBPC).

  Faubourg Tremé: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans 

Serendipity Films, LLC • 745 The Alameda • Berkeley, CA • 94707 • Ph: 510.559.8701 • info@tremedoc.com