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The Woods Hole Film Festival Dinner & A Movie film series continues on Saturday, February 10th with a special screening of the award-winning documentary GOING TO MARS: THE NIKKI GIOVANNI PROJECT by Joe Brewster and Michelle Stephenson. The evening is presented in conjunction with the Woods Hole Diversity Advisory Committee as a Black History Month event. Dinner & A Movie is a program of the Winter/Spring Film Series, twice-monthly in-person screenings of the best in independent film through June 2024. The screenings will be held in the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s Redfield Auditorium, located at 45 Water Street, Woods Hole. The program includes films from the past Woods Hole Film Festival as well as other selections curated specifically for this series. The screenings begin at 7 pm. Doors open at 6:30 pm. Tickets are $16 and $12 for WHFF members, student/military $10. The Woods Hole Diversity Initiative through the DAC is subsidizing a limited number of tickets on a first-come, first-serve basis using this code: WHDAC2024 (limit 2 per customer). Tickets are on sale in advance at www.woodsholefilmfestival.org and at the door if they are not sold out in advance. On February 10th, before the screening patrons may receive a 10% discount on the meal portion of dinner at the Quahog Republic Leeside Pub, 29 Railroad Ave, Woods Hole. Call (508) 495-2984 for dinner information. GOING TO MARS: THE NIKKI GIOVANNI PROJECT by Michele Stephenson and Joe Brewster, feature documentary, US, 2023, 102 mins. “The trip to Mars can only be understood through Black Americans.” Legendary poet Nikki Giovanni’s revelation is a launching pad to an inspiring exploration of her life and legacy. Through a collision of memories, moments in American history, live readings of her poetry, and impressions of space, Giovanni urges us to imagine a future where Black women lead, and equity is a reality. Directors Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson (American Promise, The Changing Same) craft a vision fit for the radical imagination of Nikki Giovanni. Present-day Giovanni reckons with the inevitable passing of time, while an evocative melding of vérité and archival images act as openings into her mindscape, transcending time and place. Brewster and Stephenson’s approach is imaginative and dreamlike, akin to the way Giovanni’s words are hair-raising in their power to summon unrealized ways of seeing. The Afro-futuristic lens honors Giovanni’s complexity and transports us on a journey through Black liberation from the perspective of one of America’s most acclaimed and beloved writers, a profound artist and activist. Next stop, Mars. GOING TO MARS: THE NIKKI GIOVANNI PROJECT was shortlisted for a 2024 Academy Award. About the Filmmakers Joe Brewster, Director and Producer, is a Harvard trained psychiatrist who uses his training as the foundation in approaching the social issues he tackles as an artist and filmmaker. Brewster wrote and directed his first film, The Keeper (1995), after a two year-long stint as a prison psychiatrist at the notorious Brooklyn House of Detention. The Keeper was screened at the Edinburg, Toronto, and Sundance Festivals; receiving numerous awards. For his first work Brewster was Spirit Award nominee and has never looked back. In the past three decades, Brewster has produced and directed narrative, documentary films, and immersive media. His feature documentary, American Promise, was nominated for three Emmys and won the Jury Prize at Sundance. He is a recipient of fellowships and grants from the Sundance Institute, the Tribeca Film Institute, BAVC, MacArthur Foundation, and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. Rada Studio is currently in post-production on projects with MRC, CBC and ESPN. Brewster is a member of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) and a four-time Emmy nominee. Michèle Stephenson, Director and Producer pulls from her Haitian and Panamanian roots to think radically about storytelling and disrupt the imaginary in non-fiction spaces. She tells emotionally driven personal stories of resistance and identity that center on the lived experiences of communities of color in the Americas and the Black diaspora. Her stories intentionally reimagine and provoke thought. Stephenson draws on fiction, immersive and hybrid forms of storytelling to build her worlds and narratives. Her feature documentary, Going To Mars won the 2023 Grand Jury Prize at Sundance and her earlier feature, American Promise, was nominated for three Emmys and won the Special Jury Prize at Sundance. She is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science, a Guggenheim Artist Fellow, and a Creative Capital Artist awardee. Special guest poets Prior to and following the film, guest poets Jarita Davis and Tamora Israel will read their original poetry. Jarita Davis is a poet and fiction writer with a B.A. in classics from Brown University and both an M.A. and a Ph.D. in creative writing from the University of Louisiana, Lafayette. She was the writer in residence at the Nantucket Historical Association and has received fellowships from the Mellon Mayes program, Cave Canem, Hedgebrook, and the Disquiet International Literary Program in Lisbon. Her work has appeared in the Southwestern Review, Historic Nantucket, Cave Canem Anthologies, Crab Orchard Review, Plainsongs, Verdad Magazine, and Cape Cod Poetry Review. Her first poetry collection Return Flights was published by Tagus Press in March 2016. She lives and writes in West Falmouth, MA. Tamora Israel from Dennis Port, MA is a poet, writer, performer, podcaster, public speaker, graphic designer, and entrepreneur. For more information contact the Woods Hole Film Festival at info@woodsholefilmfestival.org or call (508) 495-3456. The Festival is supported in part by grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the Woods Hole Foundation, the Arts Foundation of Cape Cod and the National Endowment of the Arts, the Falmouth Fund of the Cape Cod Foundation, Martha’s Vineyard Bank Foundation, and Cape Cod 5 Bank.