Black Stars and Filmmakers Celebrate 10 Years of AFROPOP: THE ULTIMATE CULTURAL EXCHANGE

Black stars and filmmakers converged on the Harlem Stage Gatehouse on Friday to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the acclaimed series AfroPoP: The Ultimate Cultural Exchange. The event featured a screening of the documentary program's season finale , Fatal Assistance, award-winning director Raoul Peck's sobering indictment of the global aid policies that failed Haiti in the aftermath of the devastating 2010 earthquake. The evening was hosted by actor Nicholas L. Ashe, star of the hit OWN Network series QUEEN SUGAR and host of this season of AfroPoP, and featured a post-screening discussion led by award-winning journalist Maria Hinojosa with Hébert Peck, producer of Fatal Assistance.

Produced by Black Public Media and co-presented by distributor American Public Television (APT), AfroPoP remains the only public television series dedicated to presenting documentary films about the global Black experience. Topics highlighted this season include immigration, music and the arts, women's rights and social justice.

"For ten seasons AfroPoP has broadcast films to engage American audiences in important conversations about Black life, art and culture," said BPM Executive Director Leslie Fields-Cruz. "We are glad to bring Fatal Assistance and its story about failed disaster relief efforts in Haiti, to a public that is still grappling to understand the underwhelming aid response to the recent disaster in Puerto Rico."

AfroPoP is airing on WORLD Channel and will be available for online viewing on all station-branded PBS platforms, including worldchannel.org, blackpublicmedia.org, PBS.org, and on PBS apps for iOS, Android, Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV and Chromecast. The entire AfroPoP X season will be released to additional U.S. public television stations in February 2018. AfroPoP is presented by Black Public Media and distributed by American Public Television with the generous support of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the National Endowment for the Arts.

To learn more about AfroPoP, please visit blackpublicmedia.org. For broadcast viewing information, check local listings or www.APTonline.org

Nicholas L. Ashe stars as Micah West in the critically acclaimed OWN series Queen Sugar, directed by Ava DuVernay (Selma) and executive-produced by Oprah Winfrey. His harrowing performance in the current season has resulted in critical praise and attention from industry professionals and fans. Earlier he played Viola Davis's son in the courtroom drama Custody, which premiered at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival.

Ashe made his acting debut at age 10 in the role of Young Simba in the national tour of The Lion King. Onstage, he is perhaps best known for his Lincoln Center debut opposite Marin Ireland in Abe Koogler's world-premiere production of Kill Floor, receiving glowing reviews from the New York Times for his pivotal role. Ashe also played the role of Junior in Manhattan Theatre Club's critically acclaimed production of Choir Boy (directed by Trip Cullman), reprising the role at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta and the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles.

Ashe is also a talented vocalist, pianist and composer. Under the tutelage of renowned playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney, he has developed original stories and music of his own. In 2015, he created a scholarship for young artists in his hometown of Freeport, Long Island.

Ashe collaborated with Cierra Glaude on a short film titled Last Looks, which had its world premiere at the 2017 Urbanworld Film Festival.

Maria Hinojosa is an award-winning journalist who was the first Latina reporter in many newsrooms. Having dreamt of a space where she could create independent, multimedia journalism that explores and gives a critical voice to the diverse American experience, she created Futuro Media Group in 2010. An independent nonprofit organization based in Harlem, New York City, Futuro Media Group's mission is to create multimedia content for and about the new American mainstream in service of empowering people to navigate the complexities of an increasingly diverse and connected world.

Hinojosa's nearly 30-year career includes reporting for PBS, CBS, WNBC, CNN, NPR, and anchoring the Emmy Award-winning talk show Maria Hinojosa: One-on-One. As anchor and executive producer of the Peabody Award-winning show Latino USA, distributed by NPR, as well as co-host of In The Thick, a new political podcast from Futuro Media, Hinojosa has informed millions about the changing cultural and political landscape in America and abroad. She is the author of two books and has won dozens of awards, including: four Emmys, the John Chancellor Award, two Robert F. KENNEDY Awards, the Edward R. Murrow Award and the Ruben Salazar Lifetime Achievement Award.

Hinojosa was also the first Latina to anchor a PBS FRONTLINE report: "Lost in Detention" which aired in October 2011 and explored abuse at immigrant detention facilities.

Hébert Peck, Jr., built his career on public broadcasting, social issue video and documentary filmmaking. He co-produced and narrated the documentary film Fatal Assistance and the Oscar®-nominated I Am Not Your Negro." He produced eight seasons of Philadelphia Stories, a ten-hour series of documentaries and short films for public television MiND TV. His award winning Little Hébert aired on PBS and screened internationally. Peck managed the operations of The Scribe Video Center in Philadelphia where he facilitated the production of more than 50 film or video documentaries.

He served on the board of The Alliance for Media Arts and Culture and in an advisory capacity in such areas as film and video for the Rockefeller Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Peck also oversees the Rutgers University Television Network (RU-tv), teaches Television Production as an adjunct faculty and runs Orélus Media, a production and media consulting company.

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