ITV

Tag: Martin Luther

  • Oprah Winfrey starrer ‘Selma’ addresses racial crises and struggles

    Oprah Winfrey starrer ‘Selma’ addresses racial crises and struggles

    MUMBAI:  Oprah Winfrey’s new movie Selma centers on a key moment in the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

     

    The film, which is slated to open on Christmas Day this year, will mirror the struggle in the age of Ferguson and Garner and dramatise how King (David Oyelowo) rallied peacefully in 1965 against Southern racism and Alabama governor, George Wallace (Tim Roth) in order to get President Lyndon Johnson (Tom Wilkinson) to pass the voting rights act and ensure black enfranchisement.

     

    Talking about how even today protesters fill the streets to protest police killings of unarmed black men, Winfrey says, “You look out of your window and see people protesting, and then look at Selma and it looks similar. It’s a wonderful thing that people are protesting”.

     

    “When they say, enough is enough and that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, it reiterates what Martin Luther King said in Selma,” she adds.

     

    The issue is certainly close to Winfrey’s heart. Her message of empowerment is a part of everything she does. Winfrey, who herself was born poor to a family in Mississippi, began her career as a Chicago newsreader 30 years back. Today, the 60-year-old magnate is a successful talk show presenter and a multi-faceted personality.

     

    Selma is set to release on 25 December 2014.

  • Worldwide rights of Martin Luther King doc with Kino Lorber Inc

    Worldwide rights of Martin Luther King doc with Kino Lorber Inc

    MUMBAI: Kino Lorber Inc. has acquired the entire worldwide rights of the acclaimed and seminal documentary King: A Filmed Record … Montgomery To Memphis.

    Produced for the Martin Luther King, Jr. Foundation by Ely Landau (The American Film Theater collection), King is an epic document of the life and work of Martin Luther King, Jr., from the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott to his assassination in 1968.

    Without any voice-over narration, King uses contemporary film/newsreel and video/television footage to convey the boiling indignation of oppressed people and their revolutionary organizing.

    Put side by side in the footage are dramatic readings by actors Harry Belafonte, Ruby Dee, Ben Gazzara, Charlton Heston, James Earl Jones, Burt Lancaster, Paul Newman, Anthony Quinn, Clarence Williams III and Joanne Woodward. These sections were co-directed by Sydney Lumet and Joseph L. Mankiewicz.

    King was nominated for the an Academy Award (in the Best Documentary category) in 1970and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.

  • Disney donates $2.5 mn toward building of Martin Luther King, Jr. national memorial

    Disney donates $2.5 mn toward building of Martin Luther King, Jr. national memorial

    MUMBAI: The Walt Disney Company Foundation led a Hollywood effort to raise awareness and financial backing for the building of the Martin Luther King, Jr., National Memorial by donating $2.5 million and underwriting the “Dream Dinner” fundraiser.

    With $47 million now raised by the foundation, a Congressional match kicks in that brings the total to $57 million of the $100 million needed for the project.

    The Walt Disney Company president and CEO Bob Iger said, “Everyone can do his or her part to help make sure this great man’s legacy will do more than endure, but will grow, and that Martin Luther King, Jr.’s story will be known and inspire generations to come. That is why it is my privilege and honor to present a $2.5 million check from The Walt Disney Company Foundation that will go towards realizing the dream of this magnificent memorial.”

    Those who attended to support the Dream Dinner included: Morgan Freeman, Alfre Woodard, Jack Valenti, Tommy Hilfiger, Gary Cowger of General Motors, Clarence Avant, Usher, Holly Robinson Peete, Rodney Peete, Victoria Rowell, and Antwone Fisher.

    Other companies and individuals who donated to the memorial alongside Disney were: News Corporation, the David Geffen Foundation, Steven Spielberg, Warner Bros., NBC Universal, Intel/Revelations Alliance, Jeffrey Katzenberg, the William Morris Agency, Norman Lear, Northrop Grumman Corporation, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, LLC, Nu Image/Avi Lerner, Robert Day, Lynda and Stewart Resnick, Jewish Federation, Jarvis Stewart, and Mosaic Sales Solutions, Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson, and Interior Music Publishing.

    “I am proud that the entertainment industry and the citizens of Los Angeles turned out in full force to support a long overdue national memorial to Dr. King,” said Jack Valenti, former president of the Motion Picture Association and a member of the Washington, DC Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial Project Foundation Executive Leadership Cabinet.

    The Los Angeles Dream Dinner is the third in a series of dinners to raise awareness and funds for Dr. King’s Memorial. J.W. Marriott, Jr. and Colin Powell co-hosted a Washington, D.C. Dream Dinner in October 2005. George Lucas, Deborah and Carlos Santana, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Russell and Bill Walton participated in a November, 2005 San Francisco Dream Dinner.

    Los Angeles Dream Dinner donors will join the following major contributors to the project: General Motors, Tommy Hilfiger Corporate Foundation, The Ford Motor Company Fund, Toyota, Procter & Gamble, NBA/WNBA, George Lucas, WalMart, Victor MacFarlane, AFLAC, Fannie Mae and its Foundation, The J. Willard and Alice S. Marriott Foundation, Horowitz Family Foundation, Federated Department Stores Foundation, Bell South, Bank of America Charitable Foundation, Delta Airlines Foundation, and Washington Mystics owner Sheila Johnson. Among national figures supporting the memorial are the Honorable Andrew Young, General Colin Powell, the Honorable Jack Kemp, and David Stern.