Jamel Joseph

On Thursday, February 4, from 6:30-8:00 PM, MMPCIA welcomes filmmaker and educator Jamal Joseph as its speaker for Mount Morris Talks! — a series of conversations between the community and leaders, news makers, artists, authors and thinkers who live in the Harlem area.

When Jamal Joseph urges young people to grow, heal, come together or reinvent themselves through the arts and education, he’s speaking from some pretty compelling first-hand experience.

These days Joseph is recognized as chair of Columbia University’s Graduate Film Program, co-founder and executive artistic director of the IMPACT Repertory Theatre of Harlem, executive artistic director of the New Heritage Theatre Group and an Oscar nominee, to name just a few highlights.

He was directing theater back in the ’80s, too — a prison theater, which he established while serving time at the federal penitentiary in Leavenworth, KS, for harboring a fugitive in a fatal armored car robbery.

It was that time in federal prison, Joseph says, combined with his experiences in the Black Panther Party, that became the fire forging his creative sword and launched him into a lifetime spent helping others learn, share and grow through the arts. While in prison he earned two college degrees, wrote five plays and two volumes of poetry, and founded a theater company that brought together prisoners who’d previously been divided by race, culture and beliefs.

After his release from prison he started teaching, and eventually became a professor at Columbia — the same university where as a 15-year-old he’d been part of the big protests of 1968.

In 1997 Joseph co-founded the IMPACT Repertory Theatre, a Harlem-based leadership training and performing arts organization that has trained and mentored more than 1,000 youths. In 2008 a song he helped write called “Raise It Up” for the film “August Rush” was nominated for an Oscar, and about 25 IMPACT theater members performed it at the Academy Awards ceremony. IMPACT youth also have performed at colleges, homeless shelters, corporate events and prisons, among other places.

Joseph serves on the advisory boards of the Tribeca Film Institute, Panasonic Kid Witness News, the Ghetto Film School and the Maysles Institute. His directing credits include “Drive By: A Love Story” and “Da Zone” for Black Starz, “Hip Hop in the Promised Land” for Comedy Central and “Hughes Dream Harlem” for PBS. His writing credits include “Knights of the South Bronx” for A&E. “The Many Trials of Tammy B” for Nickelodean, and “Ali: An American Hero” for FOX. He’s also the author of the book “Tupac Shakur Legacy.”

Please join MMPCIA and Jamal Joseph for Mount Morris Talks! Thursday, February 4, from 6:30 to 8:00 PM at the Harlem Branch of the New York Public Library, Community Room 3rd floor, 9 West 124th Street.

MMPCIA is proud to sponsor this series and offers it free of charge to the community.