10/25/2022
Oil and Water: A film screening of the last film by Jonathan Demme and one of Brooklyn Demme on oil companies, the contamination of water and indigenous people.
At Rockland Center for the Arts,
Oct. 27th at 7:30pm. Free to the Public.
Honoring Indigenous Futures and Storytelling
A film screening & community conversation with Brooklyn Demme
Oil and Water is a film screening and community discussion on defending our water from oil contamination. Two films will be screened: Protection Not Protest: The People of Standing Rock, the final short film by Academy Award winner, Jonathan Demme and The Community of the River Wachirpas, a short film by Brooklyn Demme. Stories can help us come together and honor the connections which we share with the rest of the world.
The event is in collaboration with Rivertown Films and the Gordon Center for Black Culture and the Arts.
In 2016 the Lakota people of the Standing Rock Reservation had to defend their watershed and scared burial sites from an invading oil company. This short and impactful film by Academy Award winner Jonathan Demme, Protection Not Protest: The People of Standing Rock, listens to the voices of the water protectors urging us to defend the sacred. Brooklyn Demme helped his father bear witness to the Lakota people, with friends and allies, working to defend our water from oil pollution. In his experience of working, socializing, and spending time with native and non-native communities, Brooklyn believes that we have a lot of meaningful exchanges to participate in, for ourselves and for the world as a whole. Water contamination is a world issue for everyone.
Now oil is poisoning the precious, irreplaceable water of the native Achuar community of Wachirpas in the Amazon Rainforest. In his film The Community of the River Wachirpas, Brooklyn brings viewers into the heart of the Amazon, where oil contamination is risking the lives and culture of an Achuar community on the Wachirpas River. As a result, the people of Wachirpas need a purification system to prevent the contamination from spreading from the water into their bodies. Demme is presenting this program of screening & discussion around his father’s film and his own, in order to help his friends in Wachirpas purchase their desperately needed water purification system. Proceeds from this event will help them to implement this life-saving technology.
A conversation with Brooklyn Demme will follow the screening, on film, activism, mentorship, and building community at home and abroad. Honoring Indigenous Futures with Storytelling: Oil & Water is a program of documentary film and discussion which will enable our communities in the lower Hudson Valley to enter a good, exchange-based relationship with indigenous people in the Amazon.
Please join Rockland Center for the Arts, Brooklyn Demme, Rivertown Films and the Gordon Center for Black Culture & the Arts for this film screening and discussion, Honoring Indigenous Futures with Storytelling: Oil & Water, on Thursday, October 27th, 7:30 @ RoCA. The event is free to the public. For more information or to reserve a seat, go to: www.rocklandartcenter.org or call 845-358-0877.
RoCA gratefully acknowledges support for its programs from The Rea Charitable Trust, The Richard Pousette-Dart Foundation, M&T Bank, The M&T Charitable Foundation, The Dorothy Gillespie Foundation, Peter & Rebecca Lang, Walter Cain & Paulo Ribeiro, Kantrowitz, Goldhamer & Graifman P.C., The Pearl Family Foundation, Luxury Kitchen and Bath, Golden Artist Colors, Inc., QuietEvents, the Estate of Joan Konner, Lighting Services Inc., Sarah and Stephen Thomas, the Mark and Jessie Milano Foundation, Zaklin Family Charitable Fund, The County of Rockland, Simona and Jerome Chazen, Art Services Group, RoCA members, donors and business members.
RoCA’s programs are made possible, in part, with funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature. Funding is also made possible by the County of Rockland.
Jonathan Demme Honoring Indigenous Futures: Oil & Water, with Brooklyn Demme The Gordon Center for Black Culture and Arts Rivertown Film Rivertown Film Rockland Center for the Arts Visit Nyack
