LEWISTON — Ozzie Jones, a writer and director for stage and film, will discuss how film can bring young people’s voices into the discussion about teen violence on Monday, Oct. 17, at Bates College.
A member of the Bates class of 1992, Jones is the inaugural speaker in the college’s Dr. Benjamin E. Mays Alumni Lecture Series. He will discuss “My Block is Crazy,” the 2011 documentary film he directed that examines the issue of everyday violence from the perspectives of inner-city Philadelphia youth.
The project is based on the work of 20 students from five high schools who, equipped with Flip camcorders and basic training in documentary filmmaking, used peer interviews to explore the causes and impacts of youth violence.
“It really is their voice,” said Jones, who sees the project as a way to give underprivileged young people the motivation and skills to improve their circumstances.
The film combines interviews with images of inner-city life and news footage of violence such as the “flash mob” attacks on residents that have ramped up the level of anxiety in the City of Brotherly Love.
“For young people growing up in Philadelphia today, the topic of violence is probably the most relevant and important issue in their lives,” Renee Hobbs, founder of Temple University’s Media Education Lab, wrote in a review of the film on the lab’s blog. “Growing up in a media-saturated society, where movies and TV shows depict violence as an essential component of storytelling, these teens are attempting to unravel complex sociological phenomenon by means of personal storytelling.”
The students who worked on the film, “got a real gift: a chance to develop trusting relationships with peers and adults, learn the joys and challenges of collaboration, and see themselves as capable and competent communicators who can use language, image and sound to convey ideas,” Hobbs wrote.
Jones has an extensive resume in stage and film work. He was the first African-American to direct a play for an Irish theater company in the history of the Republic of Ireland, tackling a production of Shakespeare’s “Othello” for the Second Stage Theater Company in Dublin.
As assistant to the artistic director at Freedom Theatre, a prominent African-American theater company in Philadelphia, Jones wrote, adapted and directed numerous plays, including “Sanctified Jook Joint,” “MOMS” and “Black Nativity.”
He has directed plays throughout the New York metropolitan area and he directed “Chance’s Champion,” the opening show at Patti Labelle’s Chez Labelle in Philadelphia. He is artistic consultant for the Institute for Development of Education in the Arts in Camden, N.J.
The Mays Alumni Lecture Series honors the life and work of Mays, a 1920 Bates graduate who influenced a generation of civil rights leaders.
Jones’ program will begin at 7:30 p.m. in the Benjamin Mays Center, 95 Russell St. For more information, call 755-5980 or email rdavis@bates.edu.
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