LJI Director Tracie Washington Among Stars of Film Premiering Tonight at PATOIS Film Festival

The eighth annual PATOIS Film Festival opens tonight with a short film made by the Al Jazeera international television news network that profiles the response of a number of New Orleans and Gulf Coast activists, organizers, and community leaders to the BP Drilling Disaster. The film, called In Deep Water: A Way of Life In Peril, also features Aaron Viles of Gulf Restoration Network, Monique Harden of Advocates for Environmental Human Rights, Byron Encalade of the Louisiana Oystermen Association, Debra Ramirez of the Mossville Environmental Action Network, and many others. The film is showing with the Sundance hit Hot Coffee, a film about the legendary "McDonald's coffee case" and the ways in which propaganda about the case has been used to protect corporate interests.

The festival runs for five days and features 22 New Orleans premieres, plus live music, food, art, Q&A's with filmmakers from around the world, and discussions with special guests. Among other highlights are: Land of the Free, about the former New Orleans Black Panthers who became known as the Angola Three; Better This World, about the actions of Common Ground co-founder and FBI informant Brandon Darby; 40, a fiction film starring Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine, who is best known to local audiences as the sous chef character on the tv show Treme; Egypt: Seeds of Change, about the behind the scenes planning that created the Egyptian revolution, and Black August, a film that blends stunning concert footage of some of our era's best conscious hip-hop artists with exclusive interviews with legendary activists like former Black Panthers Assata Shakur and Kathleen Cleaver. More information can be found at patoisfilmfest.org.

Parody Music Video by Local Artists is International Hit

2-Cent Entertainment, a local collective of young Black media makers, are known for both entertaining and inciting. They have worked with local grassroots groups like the People's Hurricane Relief Fund, documented protests and rallies, and produced music videos for up-and-coming and established artists. Brandan “BMike” Odums, one of the founders of 2-Cent, currently has 3 videos on steady rotation at MTV Jams, MTV Hits and VH1 Soul.

2-Cent describe themselves as "a collaborative effort of creative, frustrated, and comedic twenty-somethings with the innate ability to convey humor and urgency toward issues that plague not only New Orleans, but also America in general. 2-Cent is a PBS documentary, an SNL skit and an In Living Color spoof all rolled into one." Their videos have featured appearances by everyone from musical stars such as Mos-Def and Common to movement leaders and intellectuals like Michael Eric Dyson and Fred Hampton, Jr.

For the second year running, 2-Cent has released a Christmas video, parodying some of todays most popular Rap/Hip Hop and Pop music artists. The video features members of 2-Cent and their friends doing hilarious and spot-on impressions of an incredible range of artists, including Kanye West, Rick Ross, Gucci Mane, Rihanna, Baby, Plies, Waka, Willow Smith, Drake, Lil Wayne, Eminem, Lady Gaga, Wyclef and Chris Brown. The video, called Good Christmas, has already been reposted on countless news, music and entertainment sites, and has been viewed more than a million times in the week since it's premiere.

Equipped with social consciousness, music as the backdrop, and the cold hard facts, 2-Cent have gained a loyal following, and won high-profile awards, including a 2008 NAACP award, and Silverdocs: AFI Discovery Channel Documentary Film Festival Award for documentary filmmaking excellence. The entire time, they have never forgotten to lift up the stories of New Orleans.

Veterans Day, Militarism, and New Orleans

Veterans Day is a good occasion to think about how militarism has affected New Orleans. While thousands of New Orleanians are overseas in the military, breaking up families locally and breeding resentment internationally, violence continues to plague our streets, taking the life of a seven-year-old girl this Sunday.

During Hurricane Katrina, we received militarization instead of relief, with then-Governor Blanco declaring that she was sending in troops, adding, "They have M-16s, and they're locked and loaded...These troops know how to shoot and kill, and they are more than willing to do so if necessary, and I expect they will." While people were still stranded on rooftops, the first city function to restart was a jail, run by Angola warden Burl Cain.

As historian and WWII veteran Howard Zinn has said, "Veterans Day...used to be Armistice Day, because at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, World War I came to an end...Now, Veterans Day, instead of an occasion for denouncing war, has become an occasion for bringing out the flags, the uniforms, the martial music, the patriotic speeches...Those who name holidays, playing on our genuine feeling for veterans, have turned a day that celebrated the end of a horror into a day to honor militarism."

Tonight, the New Orleans chapters of Military Families Speak Out and Pax Christi have organized a Veteran's Day Forum, Coping with the Aftermath of War, at 7:00pm at the First Unitarian Universalist Church, 5212 South Claiborne, by Jefferson. The event features a screening of the award-winning documentary “Leave No Soldier," a brief talk by Gilda W. Reed, Ph.D. and an audience discussion about veterans’ health care issues.

Another grassroots effort to fight violence in our communities happens this weekend. Hip-Hop for Hope seeks to highlight conscious music and bring people together to benefit youth programs. This year's event benefits the Roots of Music, 2-Cent Entertainment’s “Change We Can Create” Summer Camp and other youth programs. Hip-Hop for Hope has raised over $19,000 in the past three years for various educational programs in New Orleans. This year's event is this Saturday, November 14, at Tipitina’s Uptown.