Media Contact:                                                                                                        Bennetta Jules-Rosette, (858) 534-4790, or Jan Jennings, (858) 822-1684

AN EVENING OF AFRICAN FILM TO SCREEN MARCH 15 AT THE SAN DIEGO MUSEUM OF ART

Film historian Peter Bloom, a Visiting Scholar at the University of California, San Diego, will present two films by Senegalese film maker Djibril Diop Mambety at 7:30 p.m. March 15 at the San Diego Museum of Art, Balboa Park.

Mambety's films, Le Franc (The Franc) and La Petite Vendeuse de 'Soleil' (The Little Girl Who Sold 'The Sun') are part of an unfinished trilogy on the tales of little people. Mambety died in July of 1998 while making La Petite Vendeuse de 'Soleil.'

Cornelius Moore, director of California Newsreel Films which distributes African films, said, "Djibril Diop Mambety left behind a masterpiece ... this is the last we will hear from the most passionate voice in all African cinema."

A question and answer session will follow the screening.

Bloom, who holds a doctorate in film studies from UCLA, is a Visiting Scholar with UCSD's African and African-American Studies Research Project (AAASRP). The evening of African film is sponsored by the AAASRP and the San Diego Museum of Art. For further information call UCSD sociologist Bennetta Jules-Rosette, AAASRP coordinator, at (858)534-4790.