YWCA's racial justice film series presents:
Two films by UNCW professor Maurice Martinez

Wings of Wood - Wilmington Premiere
and
Too White To Be Black,
Too Black To Be White: The New Orleans Creole

Screening at Jengo's Playhouse, 815 Princess Street
December 13 at 7:30pm
December 14 at 7:30pm
$5 tickets, Cucalorus Members free

Wings Of Wood, 24 minutes
New Orleans Creole Wood Carvers have been creating works of art in wood for centuries. Each succeeding generation has added to the evolution of decoy carving from the utilitarian “working duck decoys” to “decorative decoys” and beyond. This documentary presents the work of Charles Hutchison, his brother Rudolph Hutchison and son, Eric Hutchison. These three men perfected the art of the “soft feather” technique, where each feather is carved to scale from an individual piece of wood. There may be as many as 5000 pieces of wood in a single carving. So lifelike are these birds that when a fan blows air across the carving, the feathers ruffle. The work of the Hutchison family is in great demand. In 1980, a carving depicting two life-sized bald eagles sold for $24,000. Eric Hutchison provides deep insights into this meticulous artform in Maurice Martinez's informative documentary.

Too White To Be Black, Too Black To Be White, 84 minutes
If the "Melting Pot" ever existed in America, it happened in New Orleans. This presentaion examines a group of marginalized mixed-race Americans who are phenotypically both multicultural and multi-ethnic.

This documentary is the first authentic treatment of a group of Americans who proudly identify themselves as "Creoles." It provides first-hand accounts of their experiences in New Orleans. After Reconstruction, the Supreme Court decision, Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), divided American into two worlds: one white and one disenfranchised Black. The Creole stories they tell speak to the social history of the United States where the fruits of the American Dream were rewarded to those with European features, light skin, and "Good Hair." Often, survival meant giving up one's "Gens de Couleur" [colored people] identity to assimilate into White America. The process of "becoming a productive American" has been fraught with both rejections and racism for creoles...This is their story.

To contact the filmmaker:
martinez4212@bellsouth.net
phone: (910)297-2844