Bay Bottom News

Please note this “event” has passed.

Gotta have your Zora?  Get her on the Online.  

Here are some links to catch the award-winning PBS’ American Masters film, produced and written by Kristy Andersen (yours truly):

California Newsreel, the film’s educational distributor, is offering a sneak preview for those schools who have dallied and still have some money in the coffers at the end of the school year to buy a copy.  Just follow the link.

Other fans have linked and are offering a chance to view on their pages:

ThisBlkSistasPage

MaxReddick/topsy

Msinklination

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.

You missed it last time?  There have been two PBS broadcasts of JUMP AT THE SUN, first in 2008 and most recently Feb. 22, 2010.  So if you want to see the critically acclaimed ZORA NEALE HURSTON: JUMP AT THE SUN, your best option now is to buy your own copy here or through Amazon.

That pistol-packing mama, Zora Neale Hurston, had a rich life, challenging Jim Crow laws in the South as she collected folklore and the cultural matrix of Black America through her film camera, her brownie camera, and “sound machines” provided by the Library of Congress.  This photo is courtesy of Howard University Moorland-Spingarn Research Center.

Selected press clips:  The Miami Herald: “Shimmering”; Detroit Free-Press: “A big story, beautifully told”; New York Times: “Does a fine job outlining Hurston’s life and near-miraculous achievements”; NY Newsday: “An exhilarating portrait of an exhilarating woman”; Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: “Irresistible”.

Clearwater Main Library

Banned Books Week
Oct/Nov 2010 (TBA)
Black History Month
Feb 2011

NEH and Florida Humanities Council Summer Teachers’ Institute

“Zora Neale Hurston and Her Eatonville Roots”
June 23, 2010
June 16, 2010
Rollins College
Winter Park, Florida

Winter Park Public Library

March 28, 2010
Afternoon screening, time TBA
460 E. New England Avenue
Winter Park FL  32789

Studio@620

Q&A afterwards with Dr. Lois Gaston of the Zora Neale Hurston Trust
March 5 at 7:30P
620 First Avenue South
St. Petersburg, FL 33701

Boston Museum of Fine Arts

February 27, 2010
1P in Remis Auditorium
465 Huntington Avenue
Avenue of the Arts
Boston MA

New York Public Library

Part of the 27th Montreal Festival of Films on Art (FIFA)
February 7, 2010
2P @ Mid-Manhattan Library, 6th Floor
Corner 40th Street & 5th Avenue
New York City

The Louvre

Part of the 27th Montreal Festival of Films on Art (FIFA)
January 22, 2010
2:30 @ Auditorium du Louvre
Paris, France

National Gallery of Art

Part of the 27th Montreal Festival of Films on Art (FIFA)
January 10, 2010
4P @ East Building Concourse, Auditorium
Washington, DC

American Anthropological Association Annual Conference

December 3, 2009
8P @ Center City Marriott
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

National Women’s Studies Association

November 12-15
Sheraton Hotel
Atlanta, Georgia

Florida Consortium for Women’s and Gender Studies

October 3
4:30P Reeves Auditorium at the University of Tampa
Tampa, Florida

International Black Docufest

September 19
2:45P at the High Museum of Art
Atlanta, Georgia

National Black Theatre Festival

August 6-8
Kim Brockington as “ZORA” and dvd sales
Winston-Salem, North Carolina

32nd Annual PHILAFILM

Silver Award
JUNE 26
8:20P @ The African-American Museum
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

“Jump At The Sun”
FL. Humanities Council Teachers Conference

June 18
Rollins College
Winter Park, Florida

International Festival Du Film Sur L’Arts

Best Educational Film
March 25
6:30 @ Cinéma ONF
Toronto, Ontario

Pan-African Film Festival

February 9: 1P @Ja’net’s Theatre
February 13: 7:30P @ Ja’net’s Theatre
Los Angeles, California

University of Florida Documentary Institute

February 9
5P @ Weimer Hall
Gainesville, Florida

Bellamy Road Art House

Feb 7, 2009
Melrose, Florida

Zora Neale Hurston Festival

Enzian Theatre (Maitland)
Jan. 23, 2009
Eatonville, Florida