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The late Harlem filmmaker Harry Belafonte and Melvin Van Peebles, and actress Ruby Dee will be honored next week for their pioneering film work as part of the 350th Harlem Anniversary Celebrations/Black Documentary Film Festival.

Schwartz/News Eric Tait, president of the Black Documentary Collective

Organized by the Black Documentary Collective, the six-day festival is dedicated to Bourne, 64, who died Dec. 15, 2007, from pulmonary embolisms after surgery to remove a benign brain tumor.

“St. Clair was an activist, a revolutionary film maker, and as [director] Woody King said, a revolutionary activist and one of the preeminent documentarians on the planet,” said Eric Tait, president of the Black Documentary Collective, a festival organizer. “He used his filmmaking to deal with liberation movements and to give voices to the poor and the forgotten, nationally and internationally.”

On Monday, Dee, Belafonte and Van Peebles will be honored at award ceremonies at the Harlem AMC Theatre on 125th St.

Dee will receive a Lifetime Achievement Award for her work in film and theater; Belafonte, the Outstanding Humanitarian Award and Van Peebles, the Independent Cinema Pioneer Award.

Screened films will include Bourne’s “Making of ‘Do the Right Thing’”; Peebles’ “Classified X”; “Then I’ll Be Free to Travel Home,” Tait’s film about the fight to preserve the African Burial Ground in lower Manhattan, and Belafonte’s “Buck and the Preacher.”

The Oct. 10 through 13 screenings are free; the Oct. 8 and Oct. 9 screenings will have suggested donations.

Event sponsors include the Harlem Preservation Foundation, Neighborhood Artists Inc. and EVT Educational Productions, Inc.

For information about screening times and locations, go to www.harlemthennowandforever.org.

Source: Excerpted from N.Y. Daily News.  Read the full article here.