Pics from Free Angela and Political Prisoners Toronto PremierePosted by Wilson Morales
September 10, 2012
Yesterday at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival was the World Premiere of Shola Lynch‘s amazing documentary, ‘Free Angela & All Political Prisoners.’
The film details the turbulent life of radical activist Angela Davis, a member of the Communist Party, associate of the Black Panthers and UCLA philosophy professor who was charged in 1970 with conspiracy in kidnapping and murdering Judge Harold Haley from the Marin County courthouse.
Coming in to present the film were Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, who brought along their kids, Jaden and Willow.
Also in attendance were the film’s producers, Sidra Smith, Carole Lambert, and Carine Ruszniewski, along with Eisa Davis and Danny Glover.
Will and Jada are also executive producers on the film, along with Jay-Z.
Built around new interviews with Davis, the film recounts her Alabama upbringing, her studies in the U.S. and Europe, and the start of her academic career in the philosophy department at UCLA, where she quickly drew fire for her membership in the CP — which then-governor Ronald Reagan publicly labelled a “provocation.” (Reagan would later amend this, claiming that what really irked him was Davis’ “unprofessionalism.”) A campaign began to have Davis banned from teaching anywhere in the state. She began receiving death threats, which led her to purchase her first firearm.
But Davis’ problems had only just begun: in 1970, she was charged with conspiracy in kidnapping and murder following Jonathan Jackson’s dramatic daylight abduction of Judge Harold Haley from the Marin County courthouse, which ended with Jackson, Haley, and two others dead in a shootout with police. Chronicling Davis’ time in hiding, her eventual arrest and highly publicized trial via archival footage and her own words, this captivating documentary has all the fascination of a crime thriller and a courtroom drama, while touching on contentious issues around racial prejudice, gun control and freedom of speech.
