Aaron Blandon, a filmmaker, will be this year’s featured speaker at the Kathleen Mallory Distinguished Lecture Series at Southern Arkansas University. The lecture is set for Wednesday, April 19, at 7 p.m. in Foundation Hall in the Donald W. Reynolds Campus and Community Center on the SAU campus.
Blandon, a graduate of New York University’s Tisch School of Arts’ Film and Television Program, will deliver a lecture titled “The Outside Story.” The lecture will focus on the important role that film plays in society. The lecture is free and open to the public.
Blandon has written, directed and produced 12 short films, including “The Last Blackface,” for which he received a nomination for the Director’s Guild of American’s Best Student Director Award. His latest short film, “The Battle of Eshu and Iku,” was a selected entry for the Chicago International Children’s Film Festival in October 2005. It was the season premiere event in 2004 for the nationally known non-profit arts organization, Art Sanctuary.
Blandon has an extensive background in the arts comprising theatre, music, and photography. He has performed in theatre productions ranging from community theatre to Off Broadway and Broadway. He has performed in such theatre productions as A Raisin in the Sun, Touch the Musical, On the God Dammed Lock In, and Melvin Van Peebles’ Ain’t Suppose to Die a Natural Death.
His directorial credits in theatre include To Be Young Gifted and Black and Theatre for the Forgotten Workshops in New York.
Blandon is also a gifted musician and has performed on club circuits in Bangkok Thailand, Torremolinos and Seville, Spain, and Philadelphia. He has appeared at the Ethical Society in Philadelphia and the Public Theatre in New York. Blandon composed the music and songs for Wet Carpets, a play by Marian X.
As a photographer, Blandon served as the staff photographer for the Residence Advisory Board of Philadelphia, where he developed a comprehensive photo documentation of the city’s Public Housing System.
Blandon is presently producing and directing a short film and developing his first feature: a Feature of Shorts for Children, and he is also currently writing a feature film script.
For more information on the Kathleen Mallory Distinguished Lecture Series at Southern Arkansas University, call Dr. Linda Tucker in the Department of English and Foreign Languages at 235-4210.
