NJPAC and the Montclair Film Festival Screen SING YOUR SONG, 4/28

NJPAC and the Montclair Film Festival (MFF) today announced a joint presentation of a screening of Sing Your Song, a documentary about the remarkable career of musician and activist Harry Belafonte, followed by a Q&A with the singer, his daughter Gina Belafonte, and filmmaker Susanne Rostock, moderated by MFF's Executive Director, Thom Powers.

This first-time collaboration between the two cultural institutions takes place on Sunday, April 28 at 3pm in NJPAC's Victoria Theater. The screening and panel discussion leads into the kick-off of the second annual Montclair Film Festival that runs April 29-May 5.

Tickets are $14 and are available by telephone at 1-888-466-5722, at the NJPAC Box Office at One Center Street in downtown Newark, and at www.njpac.org. To purchase tickets for groups of 10 or more, call 973-297-5804.

"NJPAC and Newark are thrilled to be the 'on the road' home of the second annual Montclair Film Festival. The Festival immediately established itself last year as one of the region's major cultural celebrations, and the Arts Center is pleased to partner on this special presentation of 'Sing Your Song.' It will be a joy to welcome two old friends, Harry and Gina Belafonte, to this unique screening," said John Schreiber, President and CEO of NJPAC.

"NJPAC and the Montclair Film Festival share a dedication to bringing unique cultural experiences to New Jersey audiences," said the festival's artistic director Thom Powers. "We're delighted to co-host Harry Belafonte and 'Sing Your Songs' as our first event together and we look forward to many more collaborations in the future.

With interviews from dozens of entertainers and others from the civil rights era, Sing Your Song is an up close look at a great American. A patriot to the last and a champion for worldwide human rights, Belafonte is one of the truly heroic cultural and political figures of the past 60 years. From his rise to fame as a singer, inspired by Paul Robeson, and his experiences touring a segregated country, to his provocative crossover into Hollywood, Belafonte's groundbreaking career personifies the American civil rights movement and impacted many other social justice movements. Told from Belafonte's point of view, the film charts his life from a boy born in New York and raised in Jamaica, to his return to Harlem in his early teens where he discovers the American Negro Theater and the magic of performing.

From there the film follows Belafonte's rise from the jazz and folk clubs of Greenwich Village and Harlem to his emergence as a star. Even as he achieved superstar status, the life of a black man in 1960s America was far from easy and Belafonte was confronted with the same Jim Crow laws and prejudices that every other black man, woman and child in America was facing.