Art For Healing: Turner Classic Movies & FilmAid International Screen Movies to Offer Comfort to Louisiana Evacuees
December 01 2005 - 7:00AM
PR Newswire (US)
Film director Michael Murphy joined by famed musicians to introduce
his documentary on New Orleans musical heritage ATLANTA, Dec. 1
/PRNewswire/ -- Turner Classic Movies (TCM) and FilmAid
International will sponsor a special movie screening as part of the
North Boulevard Festival of Lights arts event for residents of
Baton Rouge and Hurricane Katrina evacuees now displaced from New
Orleans to the greater Baton Rouge area. On Friday, December 2nd,
beginning at 6:30 pm (CT), the Downtown Development District and
Baton Rouge Arts Council will organize performances of local
musicians and artists, following the holiday tree lighting ceremony
and vintage cartoons, also provided by TCM and FilmAid. The evening
will culminate with a screening of Make It Funky! (2005), a tribute
documentary to the rich musical heritage of New Orleans, introduced
by the film's director, Michael Murphy. Mr. Murphy is himself a
fifth generation New Orleans native. Renowned musicians including
the Neville Brothers, Allen Toussaint, Irma Thomas, Lloyd Price,
Bonnie Raitt, and Keith Richards appear in the documentary. Some of
the musicians featured in the documentary will be present at the
screening and available for interviews. "The scope of the
devastation associated with Hurricane Katrina is extraordinary. And
of the more than one million people from the U.S. Gulf Coast region
initially displaced by the disaster, about half are from New
Orleans," said Caroline Baron, founder and co-chair of FilmAid
International. "Our organization has extensive experience working
in regions of the world affected by crisis. We know that film has
the power to offer comfort, a sense of community," Baron said.
FilmAid International has responded to relief efforts in Kosovo,
Kenya, and Tanzania. This is the first time in the organization's
six-year history that FilmAid International has undertaken a relief
response effort in the United States. "Movies have the power to
feed the spirit as well as the imagination," said Tom Karsch,
executive vice president and general manager of Turner Classic
Movies. "TCM is very happy to help offer some comfort and
inspiration to some of the many affected by Hurricane Katrina --
and these days of the holiday season may make this an ideal time to
offer this encouragement. We hope that this special event helps
people displaced by the disaster to feel a sense of community and
hope," Karsch said. In association with the screenings, FilmAid is
also developing public service information related to mental health
services available to Katrina evacuees. Following the North
Boulevard Festival of Lights, FilmAid International and TCM will
also host a screening of classic cartoons and the documentary Make
It Funky! at the Renaissance Village trailer community, where many
evacuees from New Orleans are currently housed, on Saturday,
December 3rd beginning at 2:30 pm (CT). Other organizations
sponsoring the two events are: - The City of Baton Rouge - The
Downtown Development District of Baton Rouge - The Baton Rouge Arts
Council - The Baton Rouge Community College - Shaw Center for the
Arts - American Red Cross - FEMA - The Louisiana Family Recovery
Corps Since 1999, FilmAid International has used the power of film
to promote health, strengthen communities, and enrich the lives of
the world's vulnerable and uprooted. As a non-profit organization,
FilmAid International is funded entirely through grants and
corporate and private donations. To learn more about how you can
contribute to FilmAid International's programs, please visit
http://www.filmaidinternational.org/. Turner Classic Movies,
currently seen in more than 70 million homes, is a 24-hour cable
network from Turner Broadcasting System, Inc., a Time Warner
company. Since its launch in 1994, TCM has presented the greatest
motion pictures of all time from the largest film library in the
world, the combined Time Warner and Turner film libraries, from the
'20s through the '80s, commercial-free and without interruption.
More information is available at the TCM website at
http://www.turnerclassicmovies.com/. DATASOURCE: Turner Classic
Movies CONTACT: Emily MacDonald of FilmAid International NYC,
+1-212-529-1088, or , or Amy Mitchell of FilmAid International
Baton Rouge, +1-917-374-2948, or ; or Jennifer Dargan of TCM
Atlanta, +1-404-247-4175, or ; or Heather Holmes of TCM Los
Angeles, +1-310-788-6796, or ; or Michelle Rosenblatt of TCM New
York, +1-212-275-7883, or Web site:
http://www.turnerclassicmovies.com/
http://www.filmaidinternational.org/
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