Premiere Screening of Brave New Voices, a New HBO Series About Youth Speaks Poets, Draws Stars Robert Redford, Stan Lathan, Benjamin Bratt, Peter Bratt and Dave Eggers

Premiere Screening of Brave New Voices, a New HBO Series About Youth Speaks Poets, Draws Stars Robert Redford, Stan Lathan, Benjamin Bratt, Peter Bratt and Dave Eggers

Sundance Cinemas, Tuesday, March 24, 2009 6:30pm

SAN FRANCISCO, March 4 /PRNewswire/ -- Home Box Office and Youth Speaks, the nation's leading nonprofit presenter of Spoken Word performance, education, and youth development programs, announce the premiere screening of a new HBO series, Brave New Voices. The premiere screening takes place at Sundance Cinemas, 1881 Post Street, San Francisco on Tuesday, March 24, 2009 at 6:30pm.

Immediately following the screening are live performances from poets in the series and a Q&A with Brave New Voices Executive Producer Stan Lathan and James Kass, Co-executive Producer of Brave New Voices and Executive Director, Youth Speaks. The screening is followed by a separate fundraiser produced by and benefiting Youth Speaks.

Celebrity stars Robert Redford, Stan Lathan, Benjamin Bratt, Peter Bratt and Dave Eggers are among the few hundred guests who will come out to support Youth Speaks and this groundbreaking new Home Box Office series, Russell Simmons Presents Brave New Voices Narrated by Queen Latifah, which chronicles the lives of teen poets from seven cities around the nation as they prepare to compete in Youth Speaks' annual Brave New Voices Festival.

"Youth Speaks is thrilled to be working with HBO on this historic project," said Youth Speaks' Founder & Executive Director and series' Co-Executive Producer, James Kass. "This is a story about some of the greatest teen poets in the country, about the remarkable voices of our young people--the voices of 21st Century America."

When Youth Speaks organized their first poetry slam 13 years ago, they set the stage for one of the biggest spoken word movements in the country. This resulted in the Brave New Voices Festival, a monumental festival that features teen poetry slam champions from cities, rural, and suburban areas from all over the world. Held in a different city each year, Brave New Voices has taken place at esteemed venues such as the Kennedy Center, the Smithsonian, The San Francisco Opera House, The Apollo Theater, and the Chicago Theater, drawing thousands of audiences each year.

Following the premiere screening on March 24 is a Youth Speaks fundraising reception. The host committee includes chairpersons Colleen Backstrand, Carla Crane, Eva Frank, Kelly Harper, Jonathan Melrod, Catherine Rollhaus, Charlotte Tracey and Laurie Ubben.

About Youth Speaks

Founded in 1996, Youth Speaks is the leading nonprofit presenter of Spoken Word performance, education, and youth development programs in the country. Presenters of local and national youth poetry slams, festivals, reading series, and more, Youth Speaks also offers a comprehensive slate of literary arts education programs during the school day and after school, and provides numerous publication and youth development programs. All told, Youth Speaks works with 45,000 teens per year in the Bay Area alone, and has created partner programs in 47cities across the United States. Youth Speaks Inc. is a multi-faceted organization that understands and believes that the power, insight, creativity, and passion of young people can change the world.

For further information about Youth Speaks, visit www.youthspeaks.org.

Source: HBO; Youth Speaks

CONTACT: Mona Baroudi of Youth Speaks, +1-415-615-2735,
mona.baroudi@sbcglobal.net; or Suzanne Baum of HBO, +1-415-765-7728,
suzanne.baum@hbo.com

Web Site: http://www.youthspeaks.org/

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