Black on Screen: Cuban Roots/Bronx Stories

IN PERSON

Join us for the 25th anniversary screening of Pam Sporn’s Cuban Roots/Bronx Stories, distributed by Third World Newsreel. Now restored in 4K, the film documents an Afro‑Cuban family's personal history, tracing their migration from Jamaica to Cuba to the South Bronx. The Foster family recounts pivotal historical moments throughout the documentary — from the Bay of Pigs and the Vietnam War to settling into a multilingual, racially diverse Bronx neighborhood. Through these intergenerational oral histories, Cuban Roots/Bronx Stories explores the complexities of Afro-Latinx diasporic belonging. The film will be followed by a Q&A with director Pam Sporn and writer Rosed Serrano.

Running Time: 57 minutes

Country: US/Cuba

Original Language : English/Spanish

This series, Black on Screen: A Century of Radical Visual Culture, captures 100 years of local and transnational Black movement work and artistic evolution on film. Sourced from The Schomburg’s collection and others, it takes a kaleidoscopic look at Black life and expression across diasporas, rendering a range of storytelling traditions that incite and inspire Black world-building. The Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division (MIRS, pronounced “meers”) at the Schomburg Center collects and preserves audio and moving image (AMI) materials related to the experiences of people of African descent. The division has amassed nearly 400 collections, approximately 5,000 square feet, in a variety of formats, which captures the gestures and sounds of major historical, artistic and cultural moments and influencers. While the strength is the Black American holdings there is considerable Caribbean and African representation in the collection. Learn more about this division.

FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

ACCESSIBLILITY

Accessibility requests can be made by e-mail accessibility@nypl.org.

PARTICIPANTS

Pam Sporn is a Bronx based documentary filmmaker, educator, and activist. She loves listening to people tell stories about standing up to injustice in their own unique, subtle, and not so subtle, ways. A pioneer in bringing social issue documentary making into NYC high schools in the 1980s and 1990s, Pam substantively contributed to the growth of the youth media movement. In addition to Detroit 48202: Convesations Along a Postal Route, Pam’s work includes the documentaries Making the Impossible Possible: The Story of Puerto Rican Studies at Brooklyn College (distributed by Third World Newsreel), Cuban Roots/Bronx Stories (distributed by Third World Newsreel), With a Stroke of the Chaveta, Remembering the Mamoncillo Tree, and Disobeying Orders: GI Resistance to the Vietnam War.

Rosed Serrano (she/her) is a poet—born and raised in the Bronx—currently living, working, and creating in New York. Serrano is a PhD candidate in English and Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, and she holds a BA in African American Studies and Creative Writing from Princeton University.

LEARN MORE

This year, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture is celebrating the 100th anniversary of its founding! Join us all year long for a wide array of special events, exhibitions, and more as we celebrate this milestone and continue the legacy of Arturo Schomburg.

Schomburg100 | Exhibition | Special-Edition Library Card | Become a Member

#SchomburgLive

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FIRST COME, FIRST SEATED Events are free and open to all, but due to space constraints registration is requested. Registered guests are given priority check-in 15 to 30 minutes before start time. After the event starts all registered seats are released regardless of registration, so we recommend that you arrive early. We generally overbook to ensure a full house.

GUESTS Please note that holding seats in the Langston Hughes Auditorium is strictly prohibited and there is no food or drinks allowed anywhere in the Schomburg Center.

ACCESSIBLILITY Accessibility requests can be made by e-mail accessibility@nypl.org.

E-TRANSPORTATION NYPL policy prohibits electric transportation devices (e.g., motorbikes, e-bikes, e-scooters, e-skateboards) from being brought into or stored at library sites for any length of time, as this is the best way to keep our spaces & people safe.

AUDIO/VIDEO RECORDING Programs are photographed and recorded by the Schomburg Center. Attending this event indicates your consent to being filmed/photographed and your consent to the use of your recorded image for any all purposes of the New York Public Library.

PRESS Please send all press inquiries (photo, video, interviews, audio-recording, etc) at least 24-hours before the day of the program to Leah Drayton at leahdrayton@nypl.org.

Please note that personal and professional video recordings are prohibited without expressed consent.