Spike Lee, one of America’s premier film directors, producers, writers and actors, is coming to Northern Arizona University to talk about citizenship, government policy and human rights.<\/p>\n
Lee<\/a>\u00a0will speak during International Holocaust Remembrance Day at 7 p.m. Jan. 27 in Ardrey Auditorium. He also is scheduled to meet with about 40 students during an invitation-only reception.<\/p>\n “We chose Spike Lee to address the campus on International Holocaust Remembrance Day to recognize his advocacy for Hurricane Katrina victims, his candid portrayal of the challenges facing some African-Americans and his relentless focus on prejudice and racial stereotypes,” said\u00a0Jane Marks<\/strong>, director of the NAU Martin-Springer Institute, which is sponsoring the event.<\/p>\n This year the institute is focusing on refugees and displaced people.<\/p>\n The visit also will include an extensive film series the week of Jan. 22-26, with many of Lee’s influential films screened before his presentation on Jan. 27.<\/p>\n “Spike Lee is a seminal figure in cinema,” said film expert\u00a0Paul Helford<\/strong>, principal lecturer in NAU’s School of Communication. “He opened the door to black filmmakers like John Singleton, the Hughes Brothers, Keenan Ivory Wayans and others.”<\/p>\n He added that Lee does not stray far from controversy, citing\u00a0Do the Right Thing<\/em>,\u00a0School Daze<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Bamboozled<\/em>, which is “absolutely outrageous, a cross between\u00a0Network<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0The Producers<\/em>\u00a0in which the only black executive at a television network comes up with an idea he’s certain will fail\u2014a television minstrel show series, which, of course, becomes the biggest hit of the season.”<\/p>\n Helford said Lee got into filmmaking to use his craft to be able to say something about the human condition. “Since 1997’s\u00a0Four Little Girls<\/em>, the moving and tragic story of the 1963 bombing of a Birmingham, Alabama, church that killed four young black girls, he has proven himself to be one of our most important documentary filmmakers,” he said. “It should have won the documentary Oscar that year.”<\/p>\n