Peralta TV can be seen on
Channel 27: Alameda, Berkeley
Channel 28: Emeryville, Piedmont, Oakland
AT&T U-Verse Channel 99
IN SEARCH OF WALT WHITMAN
Written, Directed, and Produced by Andrew D. Kaplan
An East Rock Films Production
This engaging film tells the story of Walt Whitman’s remarkable life (1819-1892), the turbulent era in which he lived, and the timeless poetry he created.
PART ONE: THE EARLY YEARS 1819-1860
6/06 (Thur) @ 2pm
6/10 (Mon) @ 7pm
Walt Whitman rises from a hardscrabble boyhood in Long Island and Brooklyn to write the masterpiece Leaves of Grass in 1855 that revolutionizes literature. Many of Whitman’s most famous poems are profiled including “I Hear America Singing,” “Song of Myself,” “I Sing the Body Electric,” “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking,” and “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry.” Part One also explores the mystery of how a seemingly ordinary writer, with little education or training, could have created such a literature-changing masterpiece.
PART TWO: THE CIVIL WAR AND BEYOND 1861-1892
6/13 (Thur) @ 2pm
6/17 (Mon) @ 7pm
The poet moves to Washington to care for injured Civil War soldiers but is disillusioned by the Gilded Age after the war. He recovers from a debilitating stroke to live out his days in Camden NJ, where he continues to write poetry. Includes such renowned poems as “When Lilacs Last in the Doory’d Bloomed,” “O Captain! My Captain!” “The Wound-Dresser,” “Prayer of Columbus,” and “Goodbye My Fancy.”
FLAT TOWN
6/11 (Tue) @ 2:30pm
6/19 (Wed) @ 6pm
6/23 (Sun) @ 7:30pm
A film by Bryan Tucker
A small Cajun town in rural Louisiana holds an annual exhibition football game between the majority Black public school and majority White private school, called the Tee Cotton Bowl. This meditative small-town portrait examines racial segregation and a range of perspectives on the game and whether it should continue to be celebrated as it has been.
Ville Platte, Louisiana is a dying town and one of the poorest in the state. Despite this, a strong current of optimism persists and ramps up around the yearly Tee Cotton Bowl game between the town's two schools. The one-week event that culminates in a friendly high school football game is regarded as a precious tradition, particularly to the older residents who remember Ville Platte's history of racial segregation. However the game also starkly underscores Ville Platte's racial divisions and educational inequalities that persist to this day.
Jennifer Vidrine, both the first female and first Black mayor of the town, Tim Fontenot, the white founder of the Tee Cotton Bowl, Grace Vidrine Sibley, the first desegregate of Ville Platte High School in 1965, and others all weigh in with their respective insights on the town's past in relation to the Tee Cotton Bowl. Within living memory lurks ugly memories, but the game is seen as a hopeful beginning of sorts.
AN ARMY RISING UP
6/19 (Wed) @ 6:30pm
6/29 (Sat) @ 8:30pm
Written and Produced by Pablo Correa and Brian Graves
A Sunflower County Film Academy Production
Drawing from intimate interviews with high school students and educators in the Mississippi Delta, student-shot footage, and archival material, AN ARMY RISING UP is a short documentary that follows the journey of twenty-two high schoolers from the Mississippi Delta as they explore and document their communities’ connections to Civil Rights icons Emmett Till and Fannie Lou Hamer.
WHAT ARE YOU?
6/21 (Fri) @ 6:30pm
6/25 (Tue) @ 2:30pm
6/27 (Thur) @ 8pm
A film by Richard B. Pierre
In this revealing documentary, eleven people with a range of backgrounds discuss what it is like being of mixed racial heritage within the context of North America. Each of the participants presents their unique outlook on growing up mixed and the challenges they've faced in their lives.
No two experiences are identical when speaking about their journey of how each person came to perceive themselves. Many speak of the difference between how they saw themselves versus how the world at large treated them. There are several instances of being "othered" by friends and relatives alike or how seeds of doubt were planted at childhood to disrupt their own sense of self. The interviewees voice unique concerns about acceptance, culture, and society and how even their own self-identification undergoes shifts.
WHAT ARE YOU shows how a seemingly simple question comes with a rather complex answer.
BEHIND AI
6/22 (Sat) @ 8:30pm
6/30 (Sun) @ 4pm
A film by Jean-Christophe Ribot
Everything seems possible today thanks to Artificial Intelligence. But how successful will it be? Whereas more than ever before, technology is a driving force of evolution in our society, that driving force is now running riot. It worries a lot of computer programmers, the very creators of this AI, some of who have even become whistleblowers. It has become urgent to unveil the scientific foundations of "deep learning" and the new "intelligent algorithms" in order to better understand how, more and more often, machines make our decisions.