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The aftershocks of white nationalist rallies and their violence are still felt in Charlottesville, which hosted the 30th annual Virginia Film Festival this weekend. At the entrance of the fest’s marquee venue, the Paramount Theater (located on the idyllic main street that became a conflict zone August 12), the state pressured festival organizers to install metal detectors. Even as the festival decided to focus on the theme of “Race in Film,” out-of-town white supremacists started making their presence felt in Charlottesville as court appearances stemming from “A12” (the locals’ term for the horrific events this summer) began.

Against this backdrop, Spike Lee came to Charlottesville this weekend and screened his 1997 documentary “4 Little Girls,” about the 1963 murder of four young African-American girls in the bombing of the Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama.

“I think terrorism is terrorism whether it’s Isis, the Klan, it’s all terrorism,” said Lee introducing the...

Last November we announced that Bill Duke was prepping a film project on boxer Joe Louis. Duke teamed up with producers Gil Adler and Joel Eisenberg, inking a deal with holders of rights to Lewis' story (Fran Kirmser and Tony Ponturo of Kirmser Ponturo Group) that will see Duke co-produce and direct the film, which will focus on Louis’ historic two fights with German boxer Max Schmeling. In the summer of 2014, Fran Kirmser and her producing partner Tony Ponturo (the producing team behind recent sports-related Broadway shows - like "Lombardi," about the Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi, and "Magic/Bird," about the friendship between basketball...

On the heels of news that he's in development on a Nat Turner film starring Blair Underwood (published on this blog earlier this week), comes word that Bill Duke is also prepping a project on boxer Joe Louis. Duke has teamed up with producers Gil Adler and Joel Eisenberg, inking a deal with holders of rights to Lewis' story (Fran Kirmser and Tony Ponturo of Kirmser Ponturo Group) that will see Duke co-produce and direct the film, which will focus on Louis’ historic two fights with German boxer Max Schmeling. In the summer of 2014, Fran Kirmser and her producing partner Tony Ponturo (the producing team behind recent sports-related Broadway shows -...

Hillel Italie, Associated Press

New York (AP) - Maya Angelou was gratified, but not surprised by her extraordinary fortune.

"I'm not modest," she told The Associated Press in 2013. "I have no modesty. Modesty is a learned behavior. But I do pray for humility, because humility comes from the inside out."

Her story awed millions. The young single mother who worked at strip clubs to earn a living later danced and sang on stages around the world. A black woman born poor wrote and recited the most popular presidential inaugural poem in history. A childhood victim of rape, shamed into silence, eventually told her story through one of the most widely read memoirs of the past few decades.

Angelou, a Renaissance woman and cultural pioneer, died Wednesday morning at her home in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, her son, Guy B. Johnson, said in a statement. The 86-year-old had been a professor of...