Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival 2009 Unveils Schedule

In the Obama age, the 2nd annual Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival celebrates stories of the Mixed experience and multiracial and multicultural families for a free two-day Festival June 12-13, 2009, at the Japanese American National Museum in downtown Los Angeles. The Festival brings together film and book lovers, innovative and emerging artists, and multiracial individuals and families for workshops, film screenings, readings, and dynamic live performance with comedy, spoken word, and music.

Los Angeles, CA (PRWEB) March 31, 2009 -- The Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival will take place at the Japanese American National Museum, 369 East 1st Street, June 12-13, 2009, in downtown Los Angeles.

In the Obama age, this free public event celebrates storytelling of the Mixed experience and multiracial and multicultural families including families of transracial adoption and interracial and cultural relationships.

The Festival, a fiscally sponsored project of the New York Foundation for the Arts, a non-profit organization, brings together film and book lovers, innovative and emerging artists, and multiracial families and individuals for two days of workshops, readings, film screenings and live performance including music, comedy and spoken word.

Today, 7 percent of all marriages are interracial, according to the Census. More than 6.8 million individuals identify as Mixed.

The Festival highlights include:

The Festival hosts the largest West Coast Loving Day party, a nationwide celebration of the Supreme Court decision which affirmed the right of people of different races to marry, on Friday, June 12, 2009 at 6:30pm. DJs spin decades of dance floor classics.

Writer and producer Angela Nissel (Mixed, Scrubs) will receive the Festival's award for inspirational storytelling of the Mixed experience during the Saturday night Loving Prize Presentation, June 13, 2009 at 6pm, which features musician Jason Luckett, actor Chris Williams, and comedian Maija DiGiorgio.

The Melting Pot Moms, a multiracial family support group, will host a Family Event on Saturday, June 13, 2009 at 10:30am-12:30pm, for kids ages 3-11.

Hollywood actors and writers discuss Mixed in Hollywood in a special panel on Saturday, June 13, 2009 12:50pm-1:50pm.

Among the dozen films that the Festival will screen is the award-winning In the Name of the Son (dir. Harun Mehmedinovic), which was an Official Selection of the Festival de Cannes and winner of the AFI Directing Award. Making her directing debut is the popular You Tube vlogger Tiffany Jones of the Mulatto Diaries.

The Festival includes author readings by Bellwether Prize winning novelist Gayle Brandeis (The Book of Dead Birds, Self-Storage) and poet Neil Aitken (Winner of the Philip Levine Prize, The Lost Country of Sight, Anhinga Press), among others.

All the events are free and open to the public. The complete schedule can be found on-line at www.mxroots.org. Pre-registration is strongly encouraged. On-line registration is now open at www.mxroots.org.

Festival sponsors include: Japanese American National Museum, Social Justice Works!: The Larry Aaronson Fund, and Zerflin.com.

Contact:
Fanshen Cox or Heidi Durrow
Phone: 310-712-1632
Website: www.mxroots.org

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