Hollywood Comes to Martha’s Vineyard
Martha’s Vineyard is the place to be this August. The 17th Annual Run & Shoot Filmworks Martha’s Vineyard African American Film Festival begins in the first week. The Festival, also known as The Summer’s Finest Film Festival will screen and promote some of the most outstanding features, documentaries, and short films produced by and starring African Americans from around the world.
Hollywood comes to Martha’s Vineyard for the festival with Spike Lee, Roger Ross Williams, Michael B. Jordan, filmmaker Reginald Hudlin, Lynn Whitfield, Merle Dandridge, and Deborah Joy Winans all among the many stars expected to attend.
I will be on Martha’s Vineyard for the entire month of August. My husband Phil Hart and I came down for the festival and the opening of his new art exhibit at the Martha’s Vineyard Museum.
Phil’s exhibit is called, Soul Cup: From James Naismith to the Inkwell and opens at the Morgan Learning Center at the Martha’s Vineyard Museum.
“In December 1891, after attending a six-week summer course at the Martha’s Vineyard Summer Institute, physical education teacher James Naismith invented the game of basketball as a way to play indoors during the cold Massachusetts winters. Using a soccer ball and two peach baskets, he created a game that has grown into a multi-billion dollar international sports industry. On Martha’s Vineyard, residents and vacationers have been playing basketball almost since the game was invented.”
I interview Phil about The Soul Cup at Martha’s Vineyard, where basketball began on my show Hollywood Live with Tanya Hart. Listen below.
Using artifacts, photographs, film footage, articles, and oral history interviews, the exhibit explores the communities and camaraderie created around the game, and its legacy today.
Phil is a guest curator of this new exhibit along with Duane Jackson, Richard Taylor, and Flash Wiley.
Hollywood comes to Martha’s Vineyard and you should too.
Tanya Hart
