Category Archives: Interviews & Profiles

Interview With Former Film Studies Student Lucia Plaza

Lucia Plaza’s short film “Sal & Vinny” centers around two mobsters engaged in a relationship who are forced to consider their identities and their priorities when they’re punished by their ruthless boss. A former FIU Film Studies student, Plaza was awarded the CinemaSlam Works-In-Progress Grant by the Miami Film Festival to fund her work. We caught up with Lucia to find out how she landed this opportunity and how the FIU Film Studies program helped.

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Five Questions With: Gabriel Rhenals

Gabriel Rhenals is a passionate Miami-based filmmaker whose first feature, For My Sister, will be screened at FIU on October 9th in GC 140 at 7PM. He’s worked on several award-winning short films and only a few years after our first Five Questions Interview with him, he’s returned to discuss his debut feature-length film. We talk with Gabriel about the process of shooting For My Sister, filming on a phone camera, and his interest in social issues.

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Confronting Social Misconceptions in “Talking Black in America”

For most of my childhood, the difference between “axe” and “ask” was unnoticeable. Although I hear many within my own African-American community more commonly use “axe,” I was often scolded for pronouncing it “wrong.”

However, this is one of many social misconceptions tackled in the documentary Talking Black in America, which will be showing Tuesday, September 24 at 6 PM in GC 140 on the FIU campus. As executive producer Walt Wolfram explains, ‘axe’ comes from an archaic form of English, while ‘ask’ is the more modern form of the word. He elaborates that its use by white folks would simply be seen as linguistic retention rather than mispronunciation. Continue reading Confronting Social Misconceptions in “Talking Black in America”

Five Questions With: Dr. Hilary Jones

This Thursday, September 20, FIU teams up with the Historic Hampton House for a special screening of Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust, with discussion led by Dr. Hilary Jones of the History and Africa & African Diaspora Studies programs at FIU. Part of the Unity Boulevard Film Series at the Hampton House, this screening is free to students with ID, with $5 advanced tickets for others. We asked Dr. Jones about the screening, the series, and the relationship between film and historical research.

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