To mark the semiquincentennial celebration of the United States, the What’s Happening? film series will be exploring that essential statement of our Constitution: We the People. What is our national identity today, and how did we get here?
To answer that question, the first program in the series will look at a group of remarkable Americans through the lens of the library’s historic 16mm film collection. We will screen a rare print of Holy Outlaw, Lee Lockwood and Don Lenzer’s 1970 profile of Daniel Berrigan, the poet-priest arrested in 1968 for burning draft cards. Also in this program: Marva (1979), on educator Marva Collins who reimagined what was possible for Chicago school children; An Interview with Bruce Gordon (1963), with a 22-year-old organizer for the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee; and Crystal Lee Jordan (1975), a documentary featuring the infamous union organizer who inspired the feature film Norma Rae.
What’s Happening is a film series dating back to 1972 that centers on new and historic films in the Reserve Film and Video Collection at the Library for the Performing Arts. Screening a selection of curated titles from the collection—including documentaries, animations, and even films never commercially released—the series provides information on timely and public topics, in order to spark conversation with the audience and with special guest panelists.
Photo Credit: NYPL Videotape Workshop Circa 1971; taken by NYPL staff
