Grace Lee Boggs, civil rights icon, and subject of the 2013 documentary American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs, has died at the age of 100.
According to the a statement on the
Boggs Center website, Grace Lee Boggs died peacefully in her sleep at her home on Field Street in Detroit on Monday night, October 5, 2015.
Philosopher-Activist Grace Lee Boggs Dies in Detroit: A Champion for the People October 5, 2015–Grace Lee Boggs died peacefully in her sleep at her home on Field Street in Detroit this morning. She had recently celebrated her 100th birthday at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History. Grace was an internationally known philosopher activist for justice. She had been politically active since the 1930’s working with A. Phillip Randolph’s first march on Washington and later C.L.R. James. For more than 40 years she worked closely with her late husband James Boggs in advancing ideas of revolution and evolution for the 20th and 21st Centuries. She helped organize the 1963 March down Woodward Avenue with Dr. Martin Luther King and the Grassroots Leadership Conference with Malcolm X. Grace Lee Boggs was active in Labor, Civil Rights, Black Power, women and environmental justice movements. Later, with her husband James, she helped organize SOSAD, WePros, Detroiters Working for Environmental Justice, Gardening Angels and Detroit Summer. Grace was a founding member of the James and Grace Lee Boggs Center to Nurture Community Leadership and was a strong advocate for place based education and supported the James and Grace Lee Boggs School. “Grace died as she lived surrounded by books, politics, people and ideas,” said Alice Jennings and Shea Howell, two of her Trustees. A memorial celebrating her life will be announced later.
President Barack Obama, issued a statement, saying “Michelle and I were saddened to hear of the passing of author, philosopher, and activist Grace Lee Boggs. Grace dedicated her life to serving and advocating for the rights of others – from her community activism in Detroit, to her leadership in the civil rights movement, to her ideas that challenged us all to lead meaningful lives. As the child of Chinese immigrants and as a woman, Grace learned early on that the world needed changing, and she overcame barriers to do just that. She understood the power of community organizing at its core – the importance of bringing about change and getting people involved to shape their own destiny. Grace’s passion for helping others, and her work to rejuvenate communities that had fallen on hard times spanned her remarkable 100 years of life, and will continue to inspire generations to come. Our thoughts and prayers are with Grace’s family and friends, and all those who loved her dearly.”
The filmmakers of the documentary also issued a
statement saying, “Grace Lee Boggs passed away peacefully this morning. We are so grateful for the vision of justice and human connection that she gave us and feel incredibly privileged to have been able to share her story with others.”
The documentary film, AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARY: THE EVOLUTION OF GRACE LEE BOGGS, plunges us into Boggs’s lifetime of vital thinking and action, traversing the major U.S. social movements of the last century; from labor to civil rights, to Black Power, feminism, the Asian American and environmental justice movements and beyond. Boggs’s constantly evolving strategy—her willingness to re-evaluate and change tactics in relation to the world shifting around her—drives the story forward. Angela Davis, Bill Moyers, Bill Ayers, Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis, Danny Glover, Boggs’s late husband James and a host of Detroit comrades across three generations help shape this uniquely American story. As she wrestles with a Detroit in ongoing transition, contradictions of violence and non-violence, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, the 1967 rebellions, and non-linear notions of time and history, Boggs emerges with an approach that is radical in its simplicity and clarity: revolution is not an act of aggression or merely a protest. Revolution, Boggs says, is about something deeper within the human experience — the ability to transform oneself to transform the world.
POV is streaming the film for free until November 4.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JvyZtNA4CU
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Magnolia Pictures and the Duplass Brothers are launching an Oscar campaign for TANGERINE stars Kitana Kiki Rodriguez and Mya Taylor, reports Variety. This will reportedly be the first awards season push for transgender actress by a movie distributor in Hollywood history. Rodriguez will be pushed as Lead Actress and Taylor as Supporting. They plan on bids for screenwriting and cinematography for the film as well.
TANGERINE directed by Sean Baker, was released earlier this Summer via Magnolia Pictures, and earned a lot of well deserved attention for not only featuring transgender actresses in prominent roles, but also for its technical feat – it was shot on an iPhone 5s. The film follows a prostitute, who’s just released from prison, and headed to Tinseltown on Christmas Eve searching for the pimp who broke her heart.
Mark Duplass points out that AMPAS is behind the various TV academies in terms of recognizing trans actors; he tells Variety, “Jay and I are new to the Academy, so we’re just figuring this whole thing out. One thing that has become apparent to us as we look at this stuff, it seems that the TV Academy has embraced what’s happening in the trans movement with ‘Transparent’ and ‘Orange is the New Black.’ We feel that the film Academy is a little behind on that front.”
This TANGERINE campaign offers a vital counterpoint to “Oscar bait” campaigns in which straight, cisgender, white actors portray trans characters. Mark Duplass tells Variety of this counterpoint, “This is the time for it. We’re in the middle of a civil rights movement.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALSwWTb88ZU
Queer/Art/Mentorship, the multi-disciplinary, inter-generational arts program that pairs and supports mentorship between emerging and established LGBTQI artists in NYC, has announced the eleven Fellows accepted for its 2015-2016 annual mentorship cycle.
The Fellows chosen in five artistic disciplines are Monstah Black, Eva Peskin and Justine Williams in Performance; Jacob Matkov and Brendan Williams-Childs in Literary; Rodrigo Bellott, Erin Greenwell and Mylo Mendez in Film; Caroline Wells Chandler and Doron Langberg in Visual Arts; and Hugh Ryan in Curatorial.
The 2015-2016 
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Directed by Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Jeffrey Schwarz (Vito, I Am Divine), TAB HUNTER CONFIDENTIAL features unfiltered interviews with Tab Hunter himself, as well as friends and co-stars including George Takei, Clint Eastwood, John Waters, Debbie Reynolds and Robert Wagner.
STINK! is a new feature documentary that presents consumers with crucial information on how seemingly safe, everyday products can contain undisclosed chemicals linked to cancer and fertility issues.
After purchasing brand new pajamas for his young daughters as a Christmas gift, single father Jon Whelan is troubled when opening the packaging releases a foul odor.
Determined to uncover the source of this mysterious stench and whether it poses a health risk to his daughters, Whelan quickly discovers that manufacturers and retailers in the U.S. have no obligation to reveal chemicals used in their products, even if those chemicals can cause cancer, birth defects and reproductive damage.
Journeying from retailers and manufacturers to corporate boardrooms and the halls of Congress, Whelan clashes with political and corporate operatives all trying to protect the darkest secrets of the chemical industry.
Directed by 
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Cinedigm