by Cieslafdn | Nov 6, 2014 | Ciesla Foundation
Top Barack Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett made an appearance in the September 28th episode the CBS drama “The Good Wife.” According to The Washington Post, Jarrett played herself and urged the main character, Alica Florrick to run for Illinois state’s attorney. Jarrett is the great-granddaughter of Robert Robinson Taylor, the seminal Tuskegee Institute architect, and the granddaughter of Robert Rochon Taylor, who was the first manager of Julius Rosenwald’s Michigan Boulevard Garden Apartments. We have interviewed Jarrett’s mother, who grew up in the MBGA, for our upcoming documentary about Julius Rosenwald.
Read more about Jarrett’s CBS cameo at The Washington Post.
by Cieslafdn | Oct 1, 2014 | Ciesla Foundation
The outgoing attorney general Eric Holder posed for a picture in February with Edward H. Levi, a previous attorney general who served under President Ford. Levi was the grandson of Rabbi Emil Hirsch, a strong advocate for Civil Rights for African Americans in turn of the century Chicago. Holder has been called a “champion of Civil Rights” as well by The New York Times. You can read more about Holder and see the photo of him with Levi’s portrait in the New York Times article.
by Cieslafdn | Sep 15, 2014 | Ciesla Foundation
Every Tuesday in the month of September, the cable TV network Turner Classic Movies has been playing films with Jewish themes starting at 8 PM.
The series began on September 2nd, with Jewish-themed classics like The Jazz Singer and Hester Street. Last Tuesday, September 9th, TCM tackled the post-WWII Jewish experience on film by screening The Stranger, The Pawnbroker and Judgment at Nuremberg. Here’s the schedule for the remaining three Tuesdays of September:
Tuesday, September 16th:
8:00 PM – Hill 24 Doesn’t Answer (1955)
10:00 PM – Sallah (1964)
12:15 AM – Sword in the Desert (1949)
2:15 AM – Exodus (1960)
Tuesday, September 23rd:
8:00 PM – The House of Rothschild (1934)
10:00 PM – Gentleman’s Agreement (1947)
12:15 AM – Crossfire (1947)
2:00 AM – Focus (2001)
4:00 AM – The Life of Emile Zola (1937)
Tuesday, September 30th:
8:00 PM – The Young Lions (1958)
11:00 PM – The Way We Were (1973)
1:15 AM – Hearts of the West (1975)
3:15 AM – The Chosen (1981)
Plan to stay up late on Tuesday nights this month or just set your cable box to record some of these great films. Click here to read more about the series at TCM.com, or click here to browse TCM’s schedule.
by Cieslafdn | Jun 13, 2014 | Ciesla Foundation
CNN reports that Ruby Dee, the remarkable actress and Civil Rights activist, passed away peacefully on June 11th at her home in New Rochelle, New York.
During the 1960s, Dee was acquainted with Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. With her husband Ossie Davis, she was a key figure in the 1963 March on Washington.
Ossie, who passed away in 2005, will be featured in our film, The Rosenwald Schools, talking about Marian Anderson’s 1939 concert at the Lincoln Memorial. Davis was a student at Howard University in Washington D.C. in 1939. He was inspired by the optimism of Anderson’s rendition of My Country, ‘Tis of Thee on the National Mall, a wonderful performance made more poignant by the D.A.R.’s refusal to allow her to appear at Constitution Hall. Ossie, who passed away in 2005, was filmed discussing the concert for a 1993 documentary entitled The Great Depression discussing the impact of Anderson’s concert on him as a young man.
Ruby Dee was a remarkable actress of stage and screen for more than half a century, starring on Broadway and in films like 1989’s Do the Right Thing and 1961’s A Raisin in the Sun. We will include excerpts from the latter film in The Rosenwald Schools‘ section on Chicago’s crowded “kitchenette” apartment buildings.
Ruby Dee with Sidney Poitier in the 1959 Broadway production of A Raisin in the Sun
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons
by datdudejbal | Apr 21, 2014 | Ciesla Foundation
A new production of A Raisin in the Sun, starring Denzel Washington, debuted in the Ethel Barrymore Theater in New York last week. The show is getting good reviews, including one by Ben Brantley of The New York Times.
Describing the set, Brantley writes:
A claustrophobic fatigue pervades the cramped, South Side Chicago apartment in which “A Raisin in the Sun” is set. And despite its often easygoing tone, a happy ending feels far from guaranteed. As designed by Mark Thompson, the Youngers’ living room cum kitchen is a narrow corridor that keeps its three generations of inhabitants in close, erosive proximity.
The kitchenette apartment where the action of A Raisin in the Sun takes place is based on the tiny shared-bath apartments that many African Americans called home in overcrowded, segregated early 20th century Chicago. After seeing the cramped conditions in the area of Chicago known as “The Black Belt,” Julius Rosenwald built the Michigan Boulevard Garden Apartments, a spacious, modern, well-equipped building in the heart of the neighborhood in 1929. A scene from the 1961 film adaptation, starring Sidney Poiter, will be included in The Rosenwald Schools documentary and is already incorpoated in the twenty minute work in progress, which is used for fundraising to complete the movie. For ways to see the work in progress of the film and show it at a fundraising parlour party, contact cieslafdn@gmail.com. We would be most grateful and you would be listed among the end credits.
You can read more about the new Broadway production at The New York Times.
by Cieslafdn | Apr 21, 2014 | Ciesla Foundation
The AFI Theater in Silver Spring is screening a series of baseball films in March and April, including one of the Ciesla Foundation’s previous productions, The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg (1999). Their description is below:
THE LIFE AND TIMES OF HANK GREENBERG
April 6, 2014 at 5:15 pm
AFI Silver Theatre, Silver Spring, MD
Tickets $5!
In person: filmmaker Aviva Kempner
This Peabody Award-winning film is a humorous and nostalgic documentary about an extraordinary baseball player who transcended religious prejudice to become an American icon. Hammerin’ Hank’s accomplishments for the Detroit Tigers during the Golden Age of Baseball rivaled those of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. America’s first Jewish baseball star was a beacon of hope to American Jews who faced bigotry during the Depression and World War II.
DIR/SCR/PROD Aviva Kempner. US, 1999, b&w and color, 95 min, 35mm. RATED PG
Co-presented by the Washington Jewish Film Festival and Women in Film & Video of Washington, DC.
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