The Over-The-Rhine International Film Festival organized by LADD, a local non-profit that provides housing, employment opportunities and life skills training for people with disabilities, will take place September 26-30. ArtsWave is pleased to be supporting the event this year through a Catalyzing Impact grant. This annual festival has grown considerably in 2018, both in scope and in its overarching mission. In previous years, its predecessor, the ReelAbilities Film Festival, focused on showing films that promote awareness and appreciation of people with disabilities. The new format will present stories that celebrate the human spirit and of our shared humanity.

More than 60 short and feature films will be screened at the festival, each of which fit into at least one of five tracks — freedom, diversity, identity, disability, and faith. Screenings will occur in several venues throughout OTR. In addition, the festival will feature an art exhibition, “The Continual Struggle,” by world-renowned artist Brian Washington.

Brian Washington, native Cincinnatian and Summit Country Day alum, is a self-taught artist and attorney by degree who now resides in Los Angeles, California. "The Continual Struggle" is Mr. Washington’s tireless documentation of the Civil Rights Movement and America’s historical struggle against segregation and other forms of race-based disenfranchisement.

This exhibition consists of more than 20 works of art, vividly telling the story of racial injustice and inequality. Each piece of art is the product of Mr. Washington’s thorough exploration of an era of sharecropping, non-violent protest, freedom rides, marches, voter registration campaigns, police violence, and the realities that provoked those actions. The works of art contains no color — a deliberate demonstration of Mr. Washington’s belief that “the feelings of man are ageless and everlasting.”

"The Continual Struggle" is a unique, two-edition series. In 2003, Washington’s 11-piece first-edition series, known as “The Continual Struggle: The Civil Rights Movement — Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow” was acquired in its entirety by the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center.

Washington’s powerful art has been displayed in the Smithsonian, the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library, the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum, and many other arts institutions.

"The Continual Struggle" is on display at the School for Creative and Performing Arts from September 24-30. Admission is free. For hours of operation and other information, please visit OTRFilmFest.org or call 513-487-3939.

For a full schedule of the Over-the-Rhine Film Festival, visit ArtsWave.org/OTRFilmFest. ArtsWave Pass holders can get 50% off film tickets during the festival!