Phelps Stokes Fund STAR Program Hosts Film Festival

Cloquet, MN (September 12, 2007)—The Phelps Stokes Fund STAR (Smart Teachers as Role models) Program will host a three-day conference and mini-film festival on September 12-14, 2007 at the Fond du Lac Ojibwe School in Cloquet, MN. The purpose of the conference, themed “Erasing Preconceptions: From Stereotype to Reality,” is to increase students’ ability to understand and deconstruct media images and messages embedded in popular culture.

The conference will expose students to films and videos that explore the social and political complexities related to race, ethnicity, class, and gender. Upon viewing the films, students will dialogue with prominent filmmakers in order to further their understanding of the messages, values and lifestyles portrayed in the stories. 

Films that will be shown include:

Older Than America - a contemporary Native Indian drama about a small town in Northern Minnesota that once hosted a Native Indian boarding school which housed hundreds of children who were taken from their homes and forced to assimilate into white culture.

Souls of Black Girls - a provocative news documentary that takes a critical look at media images of women of color --how they are instituted, established and controlled.

Bright Circle – a documentary exploring the exciting lives of Jim Thorpe, Gus Welch, Louis Towanama and the other great American Indian athletes from Carlisle and Haskell Indian Boarding Schools, and their modern-day counterparts, Brett Favre, Dan Hampton, Amber DeLuca, and others, as they influence the lives of younger athletes today.

Black Indians: An American Story – a documentary that highlights a forgotten part of America’s past – the cultural and racial fusion of Native and African Americans – and explores what brought the two groups together, what drove them apart, and the challenges that they face today. 

The STAR (Smart Teachers as Role models) Program seeks to proactively address the education crisis among young men of color. Working with academic partners and researchers, the STAR Program trains young men of color to become leaders, teachers and role models in public school classrooms across the United States.  The goal of the program is to inspire and prepare boys of color to graduate from high school ready for success in college, work, and in life. 

The STAR project is funded with support from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation and the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation. For more information about the STAR Program and the STAR conference and film festival, visit http://www.psfstar.org.

The Phelps Stokes Fund is America's oldest continuously operating foundation serving the needs of African Americans, Native Americans, Africans and the rural and urban poor. The Fund is a 501(c) (3), nonprofit organization whose guiding motto is Education for Human Development.