Jun
23
2010
The Florida Humanities Council is in its third year sponsoring a conference on teaching Zora Neale Hurston’s life and works in the classroom. A week long program, the conference operates out of Rollins College in Winter Park and the teachers travel to Eatonville, Zora’s inspiration for her independent head-strong style. 
They also go to Maitland Art Center and Ft. Pierce, where Zora was buried. I’ll be there screening my film and discussing how teachers can use film terms and techniques to bring writing into their media classes. No more going straight to the camera and the edit suite – writing is an important part of filmmaking!
no comments | posted in Events, Jump At The Sun Screenings, Uncategorized
Mar
26
2010
Sunday March 28 at 2P there will be a screening of Jump at the Sun at the Winter Park Public Library at 460 East New England Avenue. The photo below is Knowles Hall at Rollins College in Winter Park, turn of the century.
Over my years of working on the film, I encountered quite a few people from Winter Park who bubbled over with their own recollections of Zora Neale Hurston, the acclaimed author of Their Eyes Were Watching God, and one of the first African-American anthropologists. Zora’s hometown of Eatonville was separated from Winter Park by a large lake or two but that didn’t stop Zora from jumping in her model-A and rumbling down Orange, Orlando, Park or Fairbanks Avenues, getting together with her white friends to play croquet. According to Zora’s niece, Winnifred Hurston Clarke, the folks in Eatonville frowned on this. And they also frowned on Zora’s lack of attendance in church on Sundays. And that’s what life in a small town was like back then. We’re fortunate that Zora created an aura that inspired so much adulation and memories in both cities.
Zora often described herself as the Florida Chamber of Commerce, sitting on her gate post, enticing tourists with her antics, querying them with “don’t you want me to go a piece of the way with you?” She managed to lure Fannie Hurst and the travel writer for the New York World Telegram to visit Winter Park in its tourist heyday.
Please stop by for the film. And bring your stories as we all like to hear them. The filmmaker (me!) will be in attendance.
no comments | posted in Events, Jump At The Sun Screenings, Zora Neale Hurston
They also go to Maitland Art Center and Ft. Pierce, where Zora was buried. I’ll be there screening my film and discussing how teachers can use film terms and techniques to bring writing into their media classes. No more going straight to the camera and the edit suite – writing is an important part of filmmaking!
