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Arts & Entertainment

"Saying No" Film Festival Debuts at MoCADA

Short works focus on the history of resistance among Aborigines—"the black people of Australia."

A series of short films at the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts (MoCADA) as part of Saying No: Reconciling Spirituality and Resistance in Indigenous Australian Art.

The films featured examples of the trials and tribulations of the aboriginal Australian people, "the black people of Australia," said MoCADA Director of Exhibitions Kalia Brooks.

According to Brooks, the goal of the premiere itself was to introduce the museum's black audience to a culture that was inspired by the black civil rights movement.

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For hundreds of years, aboriginal Australians have been fighting against colonialism, and the civil rights movement in the U.S. spread to its far shores—even sparking the growth of an Australian Black Panther movement.

The title of the festival, Saying No, is based off of the hundreds of indigenous Australian languages, most of which have no word for, "No."

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"If one can't say, 'No,' how can there be any resistance?" said MoCADA employee Chy Spraube.

The series of short films shown today, as well as the rest of the films shown during the festival, attempt to highlight those struggles, both past and present, which the Australian aboriginal people have overcome or are still fighting to conquer.

Approximately 50 people attended the premiere at the small yet significant museum located on Hanson Place and South Portland Ave in Clinton Hill.

The film festival will run from July 21 to Aug. 11, with a larger multimedia exhibition beginning sometime in the fall. For more information, got to www.mocada.org.   

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