The Acadiana Center for the Arts continues their film series this Sunday with American Creole. Louisiana filmmakers Glen Pitre and Michelle Benoit screen their 2006 film on New Orleans jazz man Don Vappie. Vappie's sidemen are scattered by Hurricane Katrina, his flooded-out mom is sleeping on his couch, and his 8-year-old grandson is clamoring to join the band. Tour the front lines of a devastated city's cultural rebirth offstage, where race is infinitely more nuanced than black or white, backstage, where which instrument you play can be a political statement, and joyously onstage, where the only thing that matters is music.
Prior to the showing of American Creole will be the debut of a brand new, locally produced animated music video, "St. James Infirmary," presented by Preservation Hall Recordings. Directed by Lafayette-based teacher and animator James Tancill, the music video for the Preservation Hall / King Britt remix of "St. James Infirmary," by the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, is an animated romp in the style of Max Fleischer (Betty Boop) that plays out like a storybook caper set against a backdrop of beloved New Orleans characters and institutions both old and new.
The free film series, Film @ the Center, is presented by the Acadiana Center for the Arts, the Center for Cultural and Eco-Tourism, and the Media Arts Workshop at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
American Creole and "St. James Infirmary" screen on Sunday, March 21 at 2 p.m. For more information on Film @ the Center visit AcadianaCenterfortheArts.org/At-The-Center or call 233-7060.
The 2010 Film @ the Center schedule is:
March 21 American Creole (2006)
April 18 - Short Circuit Traveling Film Festival
May 16 UL Lafayette Media Arts Workshop Student Showcase
June 20 All The King's Men (1949)
July 18 Spend It All (1971)
August 15 Against the Tide: The Story of the Cajun People of Louisiana (2000)
September 19 Low and Behold (2007)
October 17 The Blob (1988)
November 21 - 48th Annual Ann Arbor Film Festival (Film program to be announced in March 2010)
December 19 Louisiana Story and Louisiana Story: The Reverse Angle (1948)