NCLAC Indie Film Series: A New Color

Join us April 21st at 7:00pm at Greenwood Park for A New Color.

Film Description: 

A NEW COLOR joyfully profiles the life and work of celebrated artist Edythe Boone whose colorful murals portray some of the major events of our time and illustrate the transformative power of art.

Long before Black Lives Matter became a rallying cry, septuagenarian Boone embodied that truth as an accomplished artist and educator. From humble Harlem roots, the indefatigable Boone pursued her love of art and her dream of someday creating a new color – “a color that no one had ever seen before.”

Boone moved her family to Berkeley in the 1970’s from Harlem to avoid the growing crack epidemic. In the Bay Area, she was drawn to community mural projects that channeled her artistic talent into public advocacy for racial and social justice, including the landmark MaestraPeace mural on the San Francisco Women’s Building.

Boone has made community murals her primary vehicle for helping people of all ages and ethnicities find their artistic voice and express their hopes and visions. A NEW COLOR highlights Boone’s work with Oakland middle school students on a mural project and with seniors at a center in Richmond.

Woven throughout the film is the personal journey that fuels Boone’s art, having lived through segregation and the Civil Rights movement, as well as the more recent tragedies of Ferguson, Trayvon Martin, and the chokehold death of her nephew Eric Garner, whose final words – “I Can’t Breathe” – ignited national outrage over racist policing.

Filmed over five years, A NEW COLOR illuminates how the passionate, heart-felt work of one resilient woman can reverberate throughout a community and inspire both art and a more powerful chorus for justice.