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Posts tagged as “Korey Wise”

17th Annual ImageNation Outdoors Festival of Soul Cinema & Music Kicks off Aug. 8 in NY

17th Annual ImageNation Outdoors Festival of Soul Cinema & Music Kicks off Aug. 8 in NY

By goodblacknews on August 2, 2019

ImageNation Outdoors Festival (photo courtesy ImageNation)

The 17thAnnual ImageNation Outdoors Festival: Soul Cinema and Music Under the Stars kicks off this year on August 8th with an outdoor screening of BOSS: The Black Experience in Business.

Held in partnership with the Historic Harlem Parks and the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, ImageNation Outdoors, is New York City’s only free summer-long outdoor film and music festival dedicated to Black cinema, will continue with a dynamic slate of free entertainment.

On August 22nd, ImageNation Outdoors will present a special screening of Amazing Grace, the acclaimed documentary of Aretha Franklin recording her gospel album live at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles in 1972.  The screening will follow a live musical tribute, and Harlem will attempt to make the Guinness Book of Records by forming the world’s longest Soul Train line.

On August 30th and September 6th, join ImageNation will be screening When They See Us. The critically acclaimed docu-series that tells the untold story of the Exonerated Five. Korey Wise and Kevin Richardson of The Exonerated Five will be in attendance.

Come to slay with a screening of an intimate documentary as stylish and unconventional as its subject, Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami on September 20th.  The documentary depicts Jones in her Jamaican hometown, follows her into the studio with longtime collaborators Sly & Robbie, and at cutting-edge live shows—featuring performances of “Slave to the Rhythm,” and “Pull Up to the Bumper”.

The screening will follow live tribute performances and a fashion show of OKETSA by Thulare Monareng and designs by Sheila Prevost.

Festival dates are August 8th and continue through September 20th.   All programs are free and open to the public. Music and activities begin at 6:00PM; and, films begin at sundown.

2019 Outdoor Lineup:

  • August 8th – BOSS: The Black Experience in Business, Marcus Garvey Park
  • August 13th – Poetic Justice, Marcus Garvey Park
  • August 17 – If Beale Street Could Talk, St. Nicholas Park, w/ Harlem Week!
  • August 22 – Soul Train Tribute to Aretha Franklin and Amazing Grace, Marcus Garvey Park
  • August 23 – Decade of Fire, St. Nicholas Park (Black Public Media 40th Ann.)
  • August 24 – Kids Night Out – Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, St. Nicholas Park, w/ Harlem Week!
  • August 30th- When They See Us, Adam Clayton Powell State Office Bldg @ 125th St
  • September 6th- When They See Us, Adam Clayton Powell State Office Bldg @ 125th S
  • September 20 – Black Girl Magic – Grace Jones: Bami & Bloodlight, Marcus Garvey Park

Kids’ Night Out is curated by eight year-old Harlemite Kgari Kgama-Gates who shared, “I chose the film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse because it really inspired me to have a young superhero who looks like me. Plus, the music is awesome!”

Children as well as adults are bound to have a great time as the screening celebrates Harlem Week as well.  The program will also offer STEM games, face painting, and a back to school backpack giveaway by the Harlem-based Xi Phi Chapter of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc.

ImageNation Outdoors is sponsored by Harlem Community Development Corp, Black Public Media, New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, Harlem Week, Radio 103.9, HBO, the Colonel Young Park Association, Harlem 2020 and Global Black Network of Black Pride. Launched in 2002 with a single screening for 300 people, ImageNation Outdoors has grown to draw nearly 10,000 attendees each summer. ImageNation Outdoors is the only summer long festival dedicated to films and music about the Black global experience. 

Full descriptions of the festival programs are enclosed below. All programs are free and open to the public. Music/activities begin at 6:00PM; and, films begin at sundown:

Ava DuVernay to Write and Direct Limited Series About Central Park Five at Netflix

By goodblacknews on July 6, 2017

Ava DuVernay (photo via Variety.com)

by Elizabeth Wagmeister via Variety.com
Ava DuVernay is continuing her relationship with Netflix, bringing a limited series about the Central Park Five case to the streaming giant. Netflix has greenlit the five-part scripted series for a 2019 debut. DuVernay created the project and will write and direct all five installments.
Participant Media, Tribeca Productions and Harpo Films are behind the limited series with Oprah Winfrey, Jeff Skoll, Jonathan King, Jane Rosenthal and Berry Welsh serving as executive producers alongside DuVernay. The project is the latest collaboration for Winfrey and DuVernay who worked together on the Oscar-winning “Selma” and OWN’s “Queen Sugar.”
For DuVernay, the project marks a return to Netflix for the filmmaker who wrote and directed the platform’s 2016 documentary “13th.” “I had an extraordinary experience working with Netflix on ’13th’ and am overjoyed to continue this exploration of the criminal justice system as a narrative project with Cindy Holland and the team there,” said DuVernay. “The story of the men known as Central Park Five has riveted me for more than two decades. In their journey, we witness five innocent young men of color who were met with injustice at every turn — from coerced confessions to unjust incarceration to public calls for their execution by the man who would go on to be the President of the United States.”
Based on the true story of the notorious Central Park Five case, each part of the limited series will focus on one of the five teenagers from Harlem — Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana and Korey Wise — who were wrongly convicted of raping Trisha Meili in Central Park. The series will span from the spring of 1989, when each were first questioned about the incident, to 2014 when they were exonerated and a settlement was reached with the city of New York.
To read full article, go to: Central Park Five Limited Series From Ava DuVernay Greenlit at Netflix | Variety

Korey Wise Of "Central Park Five" Donates $190,000 to Help Fight Wrongful Convictions

By goodblacknews on December 18, 2015

Korey Wise (photo via cnews.com)
Korey Wise (photo via cnews.canoe.com)

The University of Colorado’s Innocence Project got a boost and a new name with a $190,000 donation from Korey Wise, a man exonerated in New York City’s high-profile Central Park jogger case.
The program, operated out of CU’s law school, is now named the Korey Wise Innocence Project at Colorado Law. Wise’s donation allowed the student-led volunteer program to hire a full-time director this fall and provides financial support for its investigative work.
The Innocence Project is a national nonprofit with chapters across the country that investigate claims of wrongful convictions. Colorado’s chapter was founded in 2001 under the Colorado Lawyers Committee and moved to the CU law school in 2010.
Wise was 16 when he was tried and convicted as an adult in connection with the 1989 attack and rape of a female jogger in Central Park.
He spent more than a decade in prison and was exonerated in 2002 after another man admitted to the attack and DNA testing confirmed his involvement. The convictions of the four other men accused in the attack were also overturned.
The men, who became known as the Central Park Five, settled with the city of New York for $41 million in 2014.
This is believed to be Wise’s first major philanthropic gift.