MLK/FBI (2020)
DOCUMENTARY | POLITICS | ACTIVISM
SATURDAY 24 APRIL | 6:30PM
ACMI CINEMA 1
FEATURING A SHORT FILM BY GRID SERIES
Director: Sam Pollard
Country: USA
Year: 2020
Duration: 104 minutes
Language: English
Genre: Documentary
Awards: Winner, Best Documentary - San Diego International Film Festival 2020 / Shortlist, Documentary Feature - 93rd Academy Awards
Screening Location: ACMI Cinema 1, Federation Square, Melbourne | Plan your visit to ACMI
SYNOPSIS
“By the film’s end, Martin Luther King Jr. and J. Edgar Hoover — who met face-to-face only once — emerge as an inseparable American pair.” - K. Austin Collins, Rolling Stone
Based on newly declassified files, Oscar-nominated director Sam Pollard’s resonant film MLK/FBI performs the vital task of examining J. Edgar Hoover’s relentless campaign of surveillance and harassment against Martin Luther King, Jr.
Today, when King is celebrated across political spectrums as a moral hero, it’s jolting to confront the years when US agents targeted him as a villain. This film is a crucial way to connect the past to the present.
Unclassified 15+
GRID SERIES SHORT FILM FEATURING CLARISSA MEI
“So when I tell people that I make my own beats, everyone’s real surprised because I feel like a lot people assume that there’s a man behind the song”
Meet Clarissa Mei - soul singer, beat maker and producer from Western Sydney and the making of her track “Woman”
Festival Selection
Presenting Partner
PANEL DISCUSSION
Meriki Onus
Meriki Onus is a Gunnai and Gunditjmara woman who grew in Gippsland. Meriki is currently doing policy and advocacy at Djirra. She also has significant experience in campaigning in community on issues such as deaths in custody, youth detention, racism and more recently the Djapwurrung trees. Meriki is also a co-founder of Warriors of Aboriginal Resistance and is one of the organisers of Melbourne Invasion Day ‘Abolish Australia Day’ rally. She is passionate about transformative justice and abolition in her community.
EVELYN TADROS (MODERATOR)
Evelyn co-founded the Human Rights Arts and Film Festival in late 2006 with Naziath Mantoo while studying Law and Creative Arts and the University of Melbourne. She co-directed the festival for two years with Naz and was Chairperson of the Board for 15 years, stepping down this year.
Outside of HRAFF, Evelyn is a barrister practicing predominantly in commercial law and public law, with a burgeoning practice in human rights. Prior to becoming a barrister, she was a litigation lawyer at Clayton Utz, a secondee lawyer at Homeless Law with Justice Connect and Senior Associate to the Honourable Justice Almond of the Supreme Court.
Evelyn has been involved with a number of human rights organisations over the years, including as co-host of Right Now Radio, a human rights focused podcast on 3RRR and a policy member of Liberty Victoria.
Yusur Al-Azzawi
Yusur Al-Azzawi is a senior lawyer at the Human Rights Law Centre and President of Road to Refuge. She works on systemic issues threatening Australian democracy, and also works to defend the rights of people seeking asylum. Yusur’s democratic rights work focuses in particular on protecting citizens’ protest rights, and resisting the suppression of protest movements in Australia.
Santilla Chingaipe
Santilla Chingaipe is a journalist, filmmaker and author whose work explores migration, cultural identities and politics.
Santilla is a regular contributor to The Saturday Paper, and serves as a member of the Federal Government’s Advisory Group on Australia-Africa Relations (AGAAR).
The recipient of a number of awards, she was recently recognised at the United Nations as one of the most influential people of African descent in the world in 2019.
COMMUNITY IMPACT PARTNER
The Human Rights Law Centre is an independent, non-for-profit, non-government organisation that uses strategic legal action, policy solutions and advocacy to support people and communities to eliminate inequality and injustice and build a fairer, more compassionate Australia. The HRLC works in coalition with key partners, including community organisations, law firms and barristers, academics and experts, and international and domestic human rights organisations. The HRLC works across several different areas including democratic freedoms, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples’ rights, rights of people seeking asylum and business and human rights.