Join Ayuko Babu, director of the Pan African Film Festival, Eric Mann, and Channing Martinez in conversation on the 30th Annual Pan African Film Festival.  

The Pan African Film Festival will host a hybrid festival this year from April 19th to May 1st 2022. 

Film Screenings will take place at the Cinemark Baldwin Hills
4020 Marlton Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90008

There will be a an accompanying Artfest in the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza
3650 MLK Jr. Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90008

Tickets for films can be purchased online at paff.org

Voices from the Frontlines strongly encourages you to attend in person as much as you can. 

Babu, Eric and Channing speak about what it means to host a Black film festival in 2022 in the mists of COVID 19, and during a international conflict between the U.S., Nato, Ukraine, and Russia. 
Babu tells us of the history behind this conflict and speaks about how film is one of the most important mediums to speak about and learn about international struggles and national liberation movements across the African diaspora and beyond.
 
Films we speak about: 
Cuba in Africa: The dramatic untold story of 420,000 Cubans– soldiers and teachers, doctors and nurses– who gave everything to end colonial rule and apartheid in Southern Africa.

Famadihana (Lève tes morts): In 1752 in La Reunion, Soa, a formerly enslaved Malagasy woman, thinks she has found a tunnel that would take her back to Madagascar. When her maroon village falls under the threat of slave hunters, Soa has to face an inevitable choice, abandon her family or flee to finally return home.

Fanon Yesterday, Today: Legendary Martiniquan intellectual Franz Fanon died in December 1961, but his thoughts and writings still reverberate throughout many social movements and struggles across today’s world. Through the testimonies of Fanon’s comrades and the people who knew him, Hassane Mezine explores Fanon’s eventful life, providing new insight into Fanon - the freedom fighter, the intellectual and the man.

Ferguson Rises: Before an explosive global uprising condemned the murder of George Floyd, there was a small town in Missouri that erupted in protest after the murder of Mike Brown Jr. It was this small town and its people that propelled Black Lives Matter to international prominence and inspired a new global civil rights movement....

Grandpa Was An Emperor: Follow Yeshi Kassa, great-granddaughter of Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, as she embarks on a personal quest to discover what happened to her closest relatives during the coup of 1974....

Doctor Gama (Doutor Gama): Based on the biography of Luiz Gama, one of the most important characters in Brazilian history, a Black man who used laws and courts to free more than five hundred enslaved people....

Remember Me: The Mahalia Jackson Story: (OPENING NIGHT FILM) An insightful look into the life and ascent of legendary, iconic, and mystic Gospel Singer Mahalia Jackson. This film focuses on her search to balance her gift, love, and her activism during the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s. 

Listen in on a deep conversation and introspection on Black film and revolutionary organizing using your favorite podcasting app. Then send your comments and reflections to eric@voicesfromthefrontlines.com and channing@voicesfromthefrontlines.com

2022 - 04 - 11 Babu And Pan African Film Festival Mixdown

We Are Back!
The New Voices from the Frontlines—Wake Up and Smell the Revolution
Every Tuesday, staring Tuesday November 29 2022 at 8 AM pst.

Host Eric Mann, co-host and producer Channing Martinez, and co-producer Julian Lamb are excited to bring you a new format to continue our political and cultural revolutionary politics.

This week on Voices from the Frontlines with Eric Mann:

A Conversation with Junius Williams—significant figure in the Newark N.J. Black Power Movement from 1965 to the present, director of The North, and author of Unfinished Agenda: Urban Politics in the Era of Black Power, The Black Liberation Movement yesterday, today, and tomorrow

A Conversation with Emily Zamora, lead student organizer for UCLA Friends of the Strategy Center and Bus Riders Union on the struggle against Anti-Blackness and Academic Opportunism at the UCLA Luskin school—and the opportunities for radical reform at Luskin and all of UCLA

Sing Along with Jerry Butler—For Your Precious Love
Get up and Dance with Peaches and Herb “Shake Your Groove Thing”

Channing Martinez on the Strategy Center and Bus Riders Union Holiday Block Party—Saturday December 17 2022 from 12 to 4pm at Strategy and Soul Movement Center 3546 Martin Luther King Blvd LA 90008, confirm if you can at www.thestrategycenter.org and bring family and friends. RSVP Today

Are you listening? Send your comments, questions, and suggestions to eric@voicesfromthefrontlines.com.

Listen to Voices from the Frontlines beginning November 28th, 2022 at 8AM PST on KPFK 90.7FM OR click below to stream the show live on KPFK.

Wake Up And Smell The Revolution Episode 1

Noelle Hanrahan - Head of Prison Radio and advocate for all political prisoners and friend of Mumia Abu Jamal. Noelle talks about the epicenter of Mumia’s 37 year case, where the suppression of evidence and racism, in Philadelphia took place in 1982. Pennsylvania Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald Castile, who was also a District Attorney, who campaigned on the rush to punishment and sending people to death-row, was admonished for hearing his own cases, sitting on his own appeals, and rubber-stamping his own work. Castile as the Supreme Court Justice, approved Albert F. Sabo, Mumia’s trial lawyer, coming out of retirement every 30 days just so that he could sit on Mumia’s appeal. Paid by the fraternal order of police, Castile and Sabo made sure that Mumia suffered and continues to suffer, especially since the victim of the crime, which Mumia was convicted of, was a police officer. 

Get connected.
www.freemumia.org 
www.prisonradio.org


Hacenia Chavez - United Teachers of L.A. - Why they would consider going on a strike; Classrooms sizes are unmanageable,  teachers are over-worked and underpaid, school supplies are in short supply, and LAUSD is hoarding  billions of dollars that could be used to right all of these, and many more, wrongs.
Take a listen.

VFTFL - 12.08.19

Today’s show features people doing things: no critics, observers, no professors unless they are organizing on campus, not\ news commentators, nor talking heads, just taking action!  

First up… Channnig talks with Ivette Ale who is trying to get rid of women’s prisons. LA County has approved a 3.5 billion dollar jail expansion plan for two new jails. One is a women’s jail in Lancaster, and the second is the placement to men central that is being billed as a mental-heath jail, for both men and women with mental health issues. Justice LA has been leading the work fighting back again the jail expansion plan. Ivette reports that 42% of people in LA county jails are pre-trial, meaning they have not been convicted of anything. The office of diversion and re-entry has been doing great work that will hopefully ultimately undercut any jail expansion attempts. Reach out, join the fight, and be one who is taking action! You an reach Ivette and Justice LA here. Ivette@curbprisonspending.org. Justicelanow.org. 

Eric and Channing also talk with Kirti Baranwal, a leader of the United Teachers of Los Angeles, about the strike the misallocated school district funds. Kirti Baranwal; www.utla.net, www.wearepublicschools.org. Kirti asks that you call Austin Beutner, Superintendent of LAUSD, businessman, philanthropist, and civic leader, urging him to TAKE corrective ACTION (213) 241-7000! Call him to tell him to spend the school districts money, the way that the communities need so that they can thrive and self-actualize. 

Take a listen, and then, TAKE ACTION!!!

Bonus Show #4: June 25, 2010

Voices Radio: We talk about Women's prisons and the UTLA teachers strike.

“There is no such thing as history, there’s only the battle and struggle over the historical record”. - Eric Mann.

Eric talks about his very specific interpretation of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his fight for black liberation, which Eric wrote about in www.counterpunch.org in 2015 and recently re-wrote/published called, All Hail the Revolutionary King: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Black Revolutionary Tradition. He also reads an excerpt from his article; “The annual King Day celebrations provide a great opportunity to defend Dr. King revolutionary legacy against the systems’ effort to white-wash and degrade his frontal challenge to their crimes. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was one of the great revolutionaries in U.S. and world history. He was a leader of the civil rights and black liberation movement, a fierce internationalist, anti-imperialist and pan-Africanist, a black militant, pro-communist socialist, and part of the movement that was far to the left of, and in opposition to the Democratic party.” 

In addition, Channing talks about the United States public education system’s tendency to over-associate the Democratic party with the Civil Rights movement. Channing and Eric make it clear that there were members of the Democratic party who were part of the Civil Rights movement, but the party as whole was not responsible for the civil rights movement, as commonly taught. 

Also, The Pan African Film Festivals’ showing of The Bus Riders Union film, on will be held on Tuesday February 12th at The Strategy Center at the corner of Crenshaw and MLK in Los Angeles. We hope to see you there.

Take a listen to the rest of show and write to us your thoughts about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and his fight for civil rights and black liberation.

Vol 5 [Disc 1]

Voices Radio: Eric and Channing honors Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy.

Today on Voices Radio Channing Martinez, Producer and co-host of Voices From the Frontlines, and Barbara Lott Holland, long time member of the Bus Riders Union and Associate Director of the Labor Community Strategy Center, review The Strategy Center’s Bus Riders Union film, and the economic racism that is at the core of MTA’s transit-racist narrative. Some of the featured fighters are The Labor Community Strategy Center’s Director, Eric Mann, Della Bonner, Rosio Mendiola, Kwanza Ramsey, Connie Rice, and many others. 

The film will be featured on the opening night of the Pan African Film Festival. https://www.paff.org/films/#!/film/bus_riders_union 

They discuss the issues that were part of the fight to create a better more sustainable Los Angeles, starting with the MTA, a decent decree which was won in court, and the fight that the union had to continue in the streets in order to keep the MTA accountable. The union won $2.5 billion in transit improvements. The union still maintains the fight. Take a listen to the show and tell us what you think and join the fight! 

Accompanying this review of the Bus Riders Union film, and the continued fight to end transit-racism, is a poem about Aretha Franklin, by Nikki Giovanni.

Take a listen.

Voices Radio - Channing and Barbara discuss the Bus Riders Union film.

Today on Voices From the Frontlines - we learn that civil rights leader and Black Lives Matter activist and Founding member, Dr. Melina Abdullah faces 8 felony charges… Why are our civil rights leaders facing prosecution in “liberal” L.A., you ask??? Find out… Join your community members, and The Strategy Center on Thursday, February 8th, 9 a.m., at 210 W Temple St. Dept. 43. Los Angeles, Ca., as we fight for Melina and request that Los Angeles City Attourney Mike Feuer drop ALL charges against Dr. Melina Abdullah, because criminalizing and silencing black voices WILL NOT HAPPEN!!! To sign the petition requesting that Mike Feuer drop these charges please click bit.ly/freemelina. For more background on these charges, and Melina’s diligent stand for justice, please visit https://thelandmag.com/the-people-v-melina-abdullah/

Eric and Channing talk about the Bus Riders Union film with Ayuko Babu. Eric talks about his encounter with Haskell Wexler and the making of this film which addresses the challenges faced during the fight to end transit-racism. The film has films within it, vignettes of real people, doing the work, and whose individual stories   impact the overall narrative; Della Bonner - leader of Bus Riders union, Rosolio Mendiola, was a room-service waiter who was highly dedicated to the movement, and several others. 

The Bus Riders film is in part a tribute to Haskell Wexlers legacy. Bus Riders Union film, Tuesday Feb 12th 6 p.m. during the Pan African Film Festival at Cinemark on the corner of MLK and Crenshaw. To request information write to info@thestrategycenter.org, or visit www.paff.org for more details. 

In closing Eric and Channing talk with Ayuko Babu about the new documentary about the late, great, Aretha Franklin on, called Amazing Grace, which airs opening night of the PAFF at the Directors Guild of America (DGA). Ayuko also mentions three, of many, powerful films that you must see…

1. Power To Heal - by Director Charles Burnett. It’s a story of the fight by the civil rights movement to fight to expand health care and the fight for medicare. 
2. Dare to Dream - Cubas Latin American Medical School - Is the largest medical school in the world, training nearly 30,000 doctors since 1999.
3. Boss - The Black Experience in Business by Stanley Nelson; the struggle to create black business in America. The untold story of African American Entrepreneurship where skills, industriousness, ingenuity, and sheer courage in the face of overwhelming odds provided the back bone of nations economy and social growth. 
Take a listen and join the revolution!!!

Why Wont They Listen?

Voices Radio: Support for Dr. Melina Abdullah, the BRU, and we hear from the PAFF's E.D., Ayuko Babu

Eric, Channing, and Alan discuss the importance of this film, featuring the success of the people of the Bus Riders Union and those in support of the movement. The film shows us just how important it is to demand what you want, get organized,  and remain diligent in the fight. Eric makes a really good point when he said that most documentaries make you aware of a problem, but this film shows you the problem AND the solution! This is a documentary that is showing you a movement that won and continues to win its fight. It is phenomenally inspiring.

We hear from from organizers like Della Bonner, Rosalie Mendiola, Eric Mann, and Kikanza Ramsey; "The Bus Riders Union in some ways is a political, social experiment, if you will, to see if we can build a multi-racial, bi-lingual, gender-balanced, mass movement of working class people that is willing to fight for a set of demands that challenges corporate capital.” - Kikanza Ramsey.

The brilliance of this film should move you to take action in your community!!! Join Voices From the Frontlines and The Strategy Center in the fight for humanity and elevation of the perpetually disenfranchised human and environmental population!

To get this film call (818) 985-5735, by 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday March 19th to pledge your support to KPFK and Voices From the Frontlines. After March 19th, call Strategy and Soul at (323) 903-6238.

A Fool's Expectations

Voices Radio discusses the success of the Bus Riders Union in this self-titled film.

Voices Radio features and celebrates the voices of those who sacrificed themselves for you and I.

This week on Voices Radio, Eric and Channing conduct another really great film review on two films that stood out to them in very particular ways, for them, as organizers and more so as people who think deeply and critically about life in all of its many complexities. 

Film is very important in the telling or human story through our individual lenses; its struggles, complexities, visions, successes, contributions to our species, teaching capabilities, etc. The best part of film takes place when the viewers have the opportunity to dissect the film, extract lessons, bring to light greater truths, correct the ill-perceived, and lend a hand in re-shaping humanity for the better. 

Channing’s review/critque is on a film called Mapplethorpe; A film about Robert Mapplethorpe, a queer artist and photographer. The film takes a look at his life, from his rise to fame in the 70’s through his decline and death in 1989. Channing discusses Mapplethorpe’s illustrations through his eyes, as a Black, Queer, male, and what they really mean to him, rather than what the element of Mapplethorpe’s fame has disillusioned.  

Eric reviews Captain Fantastic; A film about a husband (Ben Cash) and wife (Leslie Cash) who completely devote their entire lives to raising their 6 children in the wilderness of Washington State, completely isolated from society. They are trained to be physically fit and athletic, to think critically, co-exist with nature, and live without technology. When Leslie dies suddenly, Ben is forced to take this sheltered children into the outside world for the first time. 

Eric, as a father and organizer, focuses aspects of the film that make him think about raising his children, and how people in general expose their children to some really difficult aspects of life. 

Tune in to Voices From the Frontlines, watch the films, and tell us what you think.

VFTFL - Film Review, Mapplethorpe And Captain Fantastic

This Week on Voices Eric presents three great news bits on movements around the nation.

1) SF Bay View needs your help to continue the wonderful work they're carrying out in a moment of both transition, and hardship. Eric reads a great appeal from Mary Ratcliff. You can go on even before the show to support here: https://bit.ly/38SOvDD

2) In a great victory for Indigenous Land Rights, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Muscogee (Creek) nation today 5-4  rule in a significant portion of Oklahoma is indeed Indian Territory. 

3) A Great Berlin Bulletin from Victor Grossman, currently in East Germany entitled BreakUps and Leaks on the breaking down of the relationship between the U.S. and Germany via the German Federal Republic. 

 

Eric and Channing put in a lot of work to making the show happen each week, but haven't had the response sought after. we really want to hear from you this week. Please email your show responses to eric@voicesfromthefrontlines and channing@thestrategycenter.org 

Listen to Voice from the Frontlines today at 3pm PST on KPFK 90.7fm OR use the button below to Stream the show live on KPFK.

VFTFL - SF Bay View, Victor Grossman in East Germany, Oklahoma Indigenous Land Rights Victory.

Eric Mann is an environmental, civil rights, anti-war, labor-union activist and organizer. He is the host of www.voicesfromthefrontlines.com on Pacifica Radio's 90.7 FM KPFK, in Los Angeles. Eric is also the director of the Labor/Community Strategy Center in Los Angeles and a co-founder of the Bus Riders Union.

2022 - 04 - 11 Babu And Pan African Film Festival Mixdown

Voices From The Frontlines

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