The Sankofa Cinema Club Meetup With Film Screening and Discussion

The Sankofa Cinema Club Meetup

Happy Juneteenth, Black Music, Pride and Caribbean History Month!

In honor of the above for the month of June, we will watch a double feature of The New Black - LGBT Rights in African American Communities and Cimarron Spirit: Afro-Dominican Maroon Culture.

THE NEW BLACK boldy examines the controversial and challenging issues the African-American community is grappling with the gay rights issue in light of the recent gay marriage movement and the fight over civil rights. The film documents activists, families and clergy on both sides of the campaign to legalize gay marriage and examines homophobia in the black community’s institutional pillar — the black church and reveals the Christian right wing’s strategy of exploiting this phenomenon in order to pursue an anti-gay political agenda.

The documentary makes a compelling case that the fight for LGBT rights in Black communities is an extension of the Black Freedom Struggle. It takes viewers into the pews and onto the streets and provides a seat at the kitchen table as it tells the story of the historic fight to win marriage equality in Maryland and charts the evolution of this divisive issue within the black community.

In the Dominican Republic, as early as 1512, African slaves escaped from Spanish plantations and lived with the island’s Taíno Indians or on their own in mountainous jungles in the remote frontier land of Hispaniola. These people who were known as “cimarrones,” meaning “maroons,” created their own independent communities that have survived for centuries and until recently remained isolated from mainstream Dominican society. These resilient and resourceful “outlaws” have long developed their own celebrations, many of which mock a society that enslaved and branded them.

Our documentary examines cimarrón syncretic cultural celebrations and beliefs that are full of magic, fantasy and popular religiosity. We travel the cimarrón regions of the Dominican Republic, near the cities of Elias Piña and Barahona, looking for Dominican Gagá troops and Haitian Rara bands. Traditionally separated by national borders, these religion-based musical forms are beginning to coincide.

Cimarrón Spirit explores carnival traditions such as the ritualistic fire burning of the masks and costumes of “Judas,” “Cocorícamo,” and “Tifúas,” as figures important to the cimarrón culture of Elias Piña. We also document the similar yet unique ritualistic practices around the figure of “Las Cachuas de Cabral” in the region of Barahona, and the popular “Los Negros de La Joya” and “El Peje” that so much reflect cimarrón communal behaviors and beliefs.

Join us at the Brooklyn Public Library - Macon Branch on June 20, 2026 at 1:00 PM (ET) for a funmeetup featuring a film screening and an engaging discussion. It's a great chance to connect with fellow film lovers, share thoughts and enjoy some awesome cinema together. Don't miss out on this chill afternoon of movies and conversation!