SNCC); and the Congress for Racial Equality (
CORE). While these associations generally pursued their goals through civil disobedience and the courts, it was the Black Panther Party that eschewed the establishment in favor of leftist community organizing, a focus on Black power, and military tactics.
New film
Judas and the Black Messiah, in theaters and on HBO Max Feb 12, follows the rise of Black Panther Chairman Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya), the head of the Illinois chapter of the party. Filmmaker Shaka King tells the true story of Hampton and Bill O’Neal (LaKeith Stanfield), the car thief turned FBI informant forced to undermine the organization from the inside and participate in Hampton’s assassination. The movie is blistering in its portrayal of the conspiracy between the federal government and the local police department to silence Hampton.
Apple
The world of cinema is full of overused tropes: rom-com meet-cutes, those scenes where action heroes walk way too slowly away from a massive explosion, and, perhaps most tired of all, the idea that documentaries are only for dads and a very specific type of film student. That last one is simply not true, as anyone who s ever held their breath for all of
Free Solo, sobbed happy tears at
RBG, or felt galvanized by
I Am Not Your Negro can surely attest. There s something to be said for the goosebump-inducing power of a documentary, whether it follows a revered musician or politician throughout the most influential period of their life, illustrates the impact of a particularly noteworthy event or institution, or recreates the horrors of a prolific serial killer. In short, documentaries are often more inspiring than the most tear-jerking based on a true story biopic, more informative than a period drama, and more terrifying than a fictional horror flick because everything
Tratman Award Citations
Tratman Award, 2019
The prestigious Tratman Award (in memory of E.K. Tratman, who died in 1978) is awarded annually for a caving-related, paper-based publication, to recognise excellence and encourage future improvement. It is one of the UK’s premier national caving awards, but is open to authors and publishers from Britain and Ireland.
First awarded for the publications of 1979, the Tratman Award was administered by the Ghar Parau Foundation when the foundation was a sub-charity of BCRA, but since 2019 (presenting the awards of 2018) when the foundation became an independent charity it has been directly awarded by BCRA. The judges are independent of the association and look for not only a high standard of writing and information content, but also factors such as the publication’s layout, print quality, binding and availability. The current award covers the publications of 2019 and was judged by Joe Duxbury, Ric Halliwell