NewFilmmakers Los Angeles to Celebrate Black History Month with INFOCUS: BLACK CINEMA

In honor of Black History Month, NFMLA presents 'InFocus: Black Cinema' to open up this month's festival screening. The program consists of films that cover a range of stories and cultures seeking to underscore the importance of films that have starred, filmed, directed, or been produced by the black community.

We have two comedies of how far one goes to break the walls between color in the name of love, a witty comment on stereotyping, a beautifully captured character study of a youth from the streets, training his way to the olympics, and a historical snapshot of an economically challenged community in Detroit transformed though the modernist architecture of Mies Van Der Rohe.

Next we have two programs of short films, many premiering for the first time in Los Angeles including character driven films from Italy and Lithuania, a Hungarian produced thriller and a glimpse of mother struggling with her cancer in modern day Iran. And from the U.S., a modern day pulp flick set in the desert, a satire of a clever homeless man, and a documentary of a female acapella quartet out of Cuba.

Closing the evening, we have the West Coast Premier of 'Homestate', a tender experiment of real life and fiction following Blaise Miller in a refined performance as the lead character on a path of redefining himself despite the lack of faith from his family.

In between programs, meet and mingle with the filmmakers and industry supporters over cocktails and sounds at the filmmakers' lounge inside the private entry to the 500 seat theater of the SOUTH PARK Center in Downtown Los Angeles.

Tickets are only $5 for single film programs and $15 for all films with open bar. Event information and tickets here: goo.gl/tqDSXr.