A List
10/18/04

FILMMAKER PEARL BOWSER TO SPEAK AT ST. LAWRENCE

CANTON – Filmmaker and author Pearl Bowser, who made an award-winning documentary 
about African-American director Oscar Micheaux, will give a talk at St. Lawrence 
University following a screening of one of Micheaux's films.
	On Monday, October 18, at 7 p.m. in the Laurentian Room of the Student 
Center at St. Lawrence, Micheaux's 1919 silent film Within Our Gates will be 
shown; it will be followed by Bowser's talk. Both are open to the public, free 
of charge.
	Bowser is the director of African Diaspora Images, a collection of 
historical and contemporary films documenting black film history, and director 
of the documentary Midnight Ramble: Oscar Micheaux and the Story of 
Race Movies. She is also the co-author of Writing Himself Into History, a 
study of Micheaux's silent films, and a biography of Micheaux, Oscar Micheaux, 
His Silent Films and His Audiences.
	Widely regarded as the "father" of African-American cinema, Micheaux 
wrote, produced and directed more then 40 independent films between 1919 and 
1948. Within Our Gates is his second film and the earliest surviving feature 
by an African-American.  He was posthumously admitted to the Directors Guild 
of America, and he has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
	Within Our Gates is both an unflinching portrayal of the gross 
violations perpetrated by whites against blacks and a determined call for 
black idealism. Repeatedly re-cut by censors, who deemed the harrowing 
scenes of lynching and rape incendiary in the wake of the Chicago race riots 
of 1919, few saw the film as Micheaux intended it. Lost for 70 years, Within 
Our Gates was found in Spain in 1988 and restored by the Library of 
Congress in 1993.  

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