The 15th Annual Hayti Heritage Film Festival Projects Women Power

Jan. 25, 2009 - PRLog -- Durham , NC---  The annual Hayti Heritage Film Festival (HHFF), formerly known as the Hayti Black Diaspora Film Festival is celebrating 15 years of existence.  The 2009 festival, being held February 19-22, will be totally spearheaded by three dynamic women with years of experience in the performing arts community.

The Hayti Heritage Film Festival's co-chair's Dilsey Davis and Angela Ray have been making plans and have set the stage to take the festival to new heights.

The festival  will offer an opportunity for student filmmakers to gain more knowledge about their craft via an all-day special workshop.  Also new this year, the festival will present awards to the top student and professional filmmakers.  Celebrity judges will be present throughout the festival. They include actor Cedric Pendleton, who has recurring roles in hit television shows and movies, like Tyler Perry's House of Payne; Christine Swanson, a multiple award winning filmmaker, writer and director of the Charlotte-based Faith Filmworks, Inc., and Emmy-winning filmmaker Dante James,an Artist in Residence at Duke University .

Student filmmakers will have an opportunity to compete and showcase their talent in both the general submission category and in the Financial Short Film Challenge. " With the financial short film challenge our goal is to get filmmakers to think critically about their financial well-being in a creative manner", states Davis .  "Given the magnitude of the financial crisis we're currently in, I'm excited to see what the people come up with", chimed in Ray.

Both Dilsey Davis and Angela Ray have impressive credentials individually.  Combining the duo for the Hayti Heritage Film Festival was a stroke of luck for the Hayti Heritage Center .

Co-chair Dilsey Davis is the creator, producer and director of the award winning "Nuestro Burrio" ("Our Neighborhood"), a Spanish language telenovela mini-series addressing socio-economic issues.  "Nuestro Barrio" has aired across the United States in over 25 million households.  Davis is also the Director of Media Advocacy for the non-profit Community Reinvestment Association of North Carolina (CRA-NC), and serves as president of Cafe Con Leche Media, where she develops "edutainment" projects and provides consulting services.

Critically acclaimed, speaker, actress, producer and author Angela Ray, completes the chairmanship of the Hayti Heritage Film Festival.  A George Moses Horton Award winning poet, Ray is the author of the book of poetry, Blackberry Whispers, and is a contributing author to several anthologies.  Ray's lists of accomplishments also include two full-length plays, one presented in conjunction with the University of North Carolina 's Bicentennial celebration.  Ray is owner of her own consulting firm, Mahogany Dime, LLC which produces the annual ceremony The Mahogany Dime Awards.

"We are extremely pleased to have Dilsey Davis and Angela Ray working with us here at the Hayti Heritage Center to take our annual film festival to higher ground, and to potentially put our Center and the City of Durham on the map as another place to critically review films and to celebrate that art form", stated V. Dianne Pledger.

Pledger is the President and CEO of the Hayti Heritage Center , and has been the force behind the brand of the historic African American cultural heritage  and education center, since 1991.  Pledger is also the executive producer of the Hayti Heritage Center 's signature event-- The Bull Durham Blues Festival, now entering into its 22nd year, that is renown internationally.


To learn more about the Hayti Heritage Film Festival (HHFF),and to become a participant visit: www.hayti.org  Passes for the festival are $50.00 and may be purchased at the Hayti Heritage Center box office and online at http://www.hayti.org.

   
About the Hayti Heritage Center: The Hayti Heritage Center is the home of the St. Joseph 's Historic Foundation, Inc., which was founded in 1975. It is an African American cultural and educational institution deeply rooted in the historic Hayti community of Durham, North Carolina . The Hayti Heritage Center hosts numerous cultural arts programming annually, that examine the experiences of Americans of African descent--locally, nationally and globally. The Hayti Heritage Center is the former St. Joseph 's A.M.E. Church ,  a National Historic Landmark and economic anchor to the greater Durham community. To learn more, visit http://www.hayti.org

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