Sam Pollard: Documenting Black American Life

Hello pod! It is Day 19 of Black History Month and we’re continuing our series giving our flowers to Black Directors! Tonight’s episode is about the documentary filmmaker, Sam Pollard, the director behind MLK/FBI, The League, Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power, Black Art: In the Absence of Light and the docuseries Atlanta’s Missing and Murdered: The Lost Children. Our guest is Christopher Rush, a Rochester native who is deeply invested in the success of underrepresented communities in Rochester. He serves the community as a part of the Rochester Monroe Anti-Poverty Initiative (RMAPI) supporting organizations and individuals committed to creating conditions for upward mobility in Rochester and Monroe County. Chris is a documentary filmmaker and also the host of the CRUSH HOUR on WAYO 104.3 FM connecting with leaders working to make Rochester a better place. Subscribe and listen to Christopher’s Show, Crush Hour on WAYO 104.3 FM, here: https://wayofm.org/shows/crush-hour. You can follow him on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/_rushunlimited and follow his show on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/_crushhour If you’re watching on YouTube, make sure you hit that subscribe button. Wherever you’re listening from, hit that subscribe button, give us a 5-star rating, share this episode and leave a comment to let us know what you thought of tonight’s episode. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, & Threads. Visit ourvoicesproject.com and sign up for our newsletter for more information about what we do. We’ll be back with more episodes every Thursday with old and newly released movies that center Black, Brown, and Indigenous folks, general movie news, and interviews with film festival programmers/curators, film critics, and filmmakers! Next week continues our series on Black filmmakers –their stories and contributions to cinema. We’re handing flowers to filmmakers that we should be talking about—some you may have heard of and some you may not have heard of. Either way, you won’t know until the show premieres so make sure you subscribe! Chapters: 00:00 – Intro 02:16 – Giving Sam Pollard His Flowers 06:18 – MLK/FBI (2020) 27:39 – The League (2023) 46:10 – Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power (2022) 59:59 – Black Art: In the Absence of Light (2021) Mentioned in this episode: Our Voices Project - Land Acknowledgement Behind the Glass Behind the Glass, hosted by Richard B Colón and Quajay Donnell, is a monthly talk with the current month’s BTG Roster. Artists are interviewed about their submissions and we dive deep into their process, inspiration and thought process centralized around their artwork in the Behind the Glass Gallery located in the heart of Downtown Rochester NY. https://behind-the-glass-gallery.captivate.fm/