Art For Healing: Turner Classic Movies & FilmAid International Screen Movies to Offer Comfort to Louisiana Evacuees

Art For Healing: Turner Classic Movies & FilmAid International Screen Movies to Offer Comfort to Louisiana Evacuees

Film director Michael Murphy joined by famed musicians to introduce his documentary on New Orleans musical heritage

ATLANTA, Dec. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- Turner Classic Movies (TCM) and FilmAid International will sponsor a special movie screening as part of the North Boulevard Festival of Lights arts event for residents of Baton Rouge and Hurricane Katrina evacuees now displaced from New Orleans to the greater Baton Rouge area. On Friday, December 2nd, beginning at 6:30 pm (CT), the Downtown Development District and Baton Rouge Arts Council will organize performances of local musicians and artists, following the holiday tree lighting ceremony and vintage cartoons, also provided by TCM and FilmAid. The evening will culminate with a screening of Make It Funky! (2005), a tribute documentary to the rich musical heritage of New Orleans, introduced by the film's director, Michael Murphy. Mr. Murphy is himself a fifth generation New Orleans native. Renowned musicians including the Neville Brothers, Allen Toussaint, Irma Thomas, Lloyd Price, Bonnie Raitt, and Keith Richards appear in the documentary. Some of the musicians featured in the documentary will be present at the screening and available for interviews.

"The scope of the devastation associated with Hurricane Katrina is extraordinary. And of the more than one million people from the U.S. Gulf Coast region initially displaced by the disaster, about half are from New Orleans," said Caroline Baron, founder and co-chair of FilmAid International. "Our organization has extensive experience working in regions of the world affected by crisis. We know that film has the power to offer comfort, a sense of community," Baron said. FilmAid International has responded to relief efforts in Kosovo, Kenya, and Tanzania. This is the first time in the organization's six-year history that FilmAid International has undertaken a relief response effort in the United States.

"Movies have the power to feed the spirit as well as the imagination," said Tom Karsch, executive vice president and general manager of Turner Classic Movies. "TCM is very happy to help offer some comfort and inspiration to some of the many affected by Hurricane Katrina -- and these days of the holiday season may make this an ideal time to offer this encouragement. We hope that this special event helps people displaced by the disaster to feel a sense of community and hope," Karsch said.

In association with the screenings, FilmAid is also developing public service information related to mental health services available to Katrina evacuees. Following the North Boulevard Festival of Lights, FilmAid International and TCM will also host a screening of classic cartoons and the documentary Make It Funky! at the Renaissance Village trailer community, where many evacuees from New Orleans are currently housed, on Saturday, December 3rd beginning at 2:30 pm (CT). Other organizations sponsoring the two events are:

- The City of Baton Rouge
- The Downtown Development District of Baton Rouge
- The Baton Rouge Arts Council
- The Baton Rouge Community College
- Shaw Center for the Arts
- American Red Cross
- FEMA
- The Louisiana Family Recovery Corps

Since 1999, FilmAid International has used the power of film to promote health, strengthen communities, and enrich the lives of the world's vulnerable and uprooted. As a non-profit organization, FilmAid International is funded entirely through grants and corporate and private donations. To learn more about how you can contribute to FilmAid International's programs, please visit http://www.filmaidinternational.org/.

Turner Classic Movies, currently seen in more than 70 million homes, is a 24-hour cable network from Turner Broadcasting System, Inc., a Time Warner company. Since its launch in 1994, TCM has presented the greatest motion pictures of all time from the largest film library in the world, the combined Time Warner and Turner film libraries, from the '20s through the '80s, commercial-free and without interruption. More information is available at the TCM website at http://www.turnerclassicmovies.com/.

Source: Turner Classic Movies

CONTACT: Emily MacDonald of FilmAid International NYC, +1-212-529-1088,
or emacdonald@filmaidinternational.org, or Amy Mitchell of FilmAid
International Baton Rouge, +1-917-374-2948, or
amitchell@filmaidinternational.org; or Jennifer Dargan of TCM Atlanta,
+1-404-247-4175, or jennifer.dargan@turner.com; or Heather Holmes of TCM Los
Angeles, +1-310-788-6796, or heather.holmes@turner.com; or Michelle Rosenblatt
of TCM New York, +1-212-275-7883, or michelle.rosenblatt@turner.com

Web site: http://www.turnerclassicmovies.com/
http://www.filmaidinternational.org/

NOTE TO EDITORS: This information can also be accessed on TBS, Inc.'s press site at http://www.turnerinfo.com.

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