US Ambassador Katherine Canavan will officially Launch the film festival at the university auditorium on Monday. The launch will be followed by the viewing of I Have a Dream, a film which depicts the legacy and vision of Dr Martin Luther King, the assassinated black American civil rights leader who had tremendous influence on the US political thought. Members of the public are invited to attend the film festival, which runs from February 12-14. All the films start at 6 pm. Films being shown for this festival generally examine the roots and conditions of slavery and go on to explore several important incidents in US race relations that led to and sparked the Civil Rights Movement.
On Tuesday evening members of the public will be treated to a viewing of The Terrible Transformation: Africans in America. The film shows how only half of the over 20 million Africans kidnapped into slavery survived the torturous trip to the so-called New World, and that many Europeans came to America as bonded labour. Interviews in the film and eye opening details uncover the little known facts of indentured servitude from its beginnings in Europe through its brutal emergence in the new world. Members of the public are invited to witness history from a new perspective and begin to understand the economic conditions that perpetuated the slave trade; the barbaric "middle passage" across the Atlantic Ocean aboard ships and the bitter struggles between master and servant.
