WS Chronicle

Submitted by RiverRun festival

SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE

This year’s RiverRun festival is packed full of events and educational offerings for the Winston-Salem community.  In its 19th run, the annual festival is being held on through April 9.

During the run of the Festival, RiverRun creates an inspired environment in downtown Winston-Salem featuring a dynamic combination of talent, film-loving audiences and industry heavyweights. A hotbed of discovery and interactivity, this cultural event offers screenings of yet-to-be released films, opportunities to interact with artists and immersion into the art and business of the independent film world.

This year the festival will feature a film titled “Tell Them We Are Rising: The Story of Historically Black Colleges and Universities” – USA, directed by Stanley Nelson.  It chronicles the 150-year story of historically black colleges and universities (HBCU). It will be shown 2 to 3:30 p.m. on Sunday, April 9 at the Babcock Theatre on the campus of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, 1533 S Main St. in Winston-Salem.

In addition to its inter-national submissions, the festival will present stories from North Carolina.  This section boasts North Carolina filmmakers using their talents to creatively render compelling tales. Some of the films will include:

*“Chairman Jones,” which tells the story of a self-educated farmer who disregards racism and lack of education and emerges as a trailblazer during the tense 1969 school desegregation crisis in Northampton County, leading the fight to end nearly a century of inequality in education.

*“Purple Dreams,” which tells of a three-year journey that serves as an inspirational window into the lives of inner-city, at-risk students in Charlotte, who succeed at their pas-sion while embracing the transformative power of their arts education.

* “TruthUnderground,” which tells of how three spoken word poets struggle through poverty, discrimination, PTSD and abandonment to illuminate what fellow North Carolinian poet Maya Angelou called “a brave and startling truth.”

RiverRun’s year-round education program (Films with Class) gives area educators the opportunity to expose their students to Festival films. During the festival, students attend and participate in private screenings with the filmmakers and special guests. This is opportunity is sponsored by Wells Fargo.  Founded in 1998, RiverRun was inspired by the French Broad River near Brevard, North Carolina, where the festival was originally held. Each year since its inception, RiverRun has grown substantially, boasting over 18,000 tickets sold in recent years

For the RiverRun’s entire schedule, go to http://riverrunfilm.com/#r dv-calendar.