Flick Pick

The thirteenth annual Black History Month Film & Video Festival this weekend will feature two films by the renowned Mexican documentarian Rafael R. Corona, as well as a 29-minute look at a late, lamented African-American bookstore here in Denver and a piece on the plight of Haitians as seen by Haitian filmmaker Jean-René Rinvil.

The Corona films are From Florida to Coahuila(2002), which examines the ties between a population of black people living in Mexico and their relatives in the of town Bracketville, Texas, and The Forgotten Root (2002), which revives the all-but-forgotten subject of African slaves exported to Mexico. The festival's director, Davon E. Johnson, is also the maker of Have a Hue-Man Experience: An African-American Bookstore and More (1990), which tells the story of the celebrated booksore -- now sadly defunct -- that served as a community center and a cultural resource in northeast Denver. Rinvil's Laviche (2002) focuses on the problems affecting Haitians in an era of increasing political and economic pressures from the United States government.

The festival is scheduled for Saturday afternoon, February 5, at the Black American West Museum and Heritage Center, 3091 California Street. For information and screening times, call Davon E. Johnson at 720-422-0144.