“Music by Prudence”
Meet Oscar Winner Roger Ross Williams
Friday, September 10, 5:00pm
Landmark’s E Street Cinema
555 11th Street NW
DC Shorts is very proud to screen “Music by Prudence,” the 2010 Oscar Winner for Best Documentary Short Film, presented by Roger Ross Williams, the film’s director and producer. A moderated Q&A will follow the screening.
The evening before, celebrate the opening night of the festival at the Celebrity Party, where Roger will be our special guest.
SYNOPSIS:
Prudence lives in Zimbabwe, and for a long time almost no one knew about that hauntingly beautiful voice. No one knew the strong, resilient woman that owned it. They were unable to overlook her body: born with a debilitating condition called arthrogryposis.
When Prudence was born, her paternal grandmother wanted her dead. In Zimbabwe, disabled children are sometimes believed to be the result of witchcraft. In extreme cases, families kill them—to remove the “curse” from their family. Prudence’s mother kept her and fed her. Cast out of her husband’s (Prudence’s father’s) home, she brought the baby to her own mother’s rural home. Four years later, she left.
Music by Prudence traces the path of this little girl, and her remarkable transcendence from a world of hatred and superstition into one of music, love, and possibility.
Roger Ross Williams is the first African American director to win an Academy Award in his category of Documentary Shorts, and the first ever African American director to win an Academy Award for directing and producing a film, short or feature.