A film school in his name

NEW YORK (AP) – In 1963, Sidney Poitier made a movie in Arizona, “Lilies of the Field”. The performance led to a milestone: he became the first black Oscar winner.

Today Arizona is the site of another career milestone for the legendary actor and filmmaker – Arizona State University gave its new film school its name. Sidney Poitier’s new school of American cinema was unveiled in a virtual ceremony on Monday.

The decision to give the school the name of Poitier, 93, is more than his accomplishments and his legacy, but because he “embodies in his very person what we strive to be – the concordance of l excellence, motivation and passion with a social and social purpose. results, all that his career has really been like, ”said Michael M. Crow, president of the university.

“You’re looking for an icon, a person who embodies everything you stand for,” Crow said in a previous interview. “With Sidney Poitier, it’s his creative energy, his dynamism, his dynamism, his ambition, the types of projects he has worked on, the way in which he has made progress in his life.

“Look at his life: this is the story of a person who found a way,” he said of the actor, born in Miami and raised in the Bahamas, son of tomato farmers, before to embark on a career that has grown from small, hard-earned plays to eventual Hollywood stardom. “How can we help other young people find their way?”

The university, which is expanding its existing film program to its own school, says it has invested millions of dollars in technology to create what is said to be one of the largest, most accessible, and most successful film schools. diversified. Crow said that, like the university at large, the film school will measure success not by exclusivity but by inclusiveness.

By expanding both his physical resources and flexible learning options like online study, he hopes to enroll thousands of additional students, teaching them skills that go far beyond traditional filmmaking.

The school will move in fall 2022 to a new facility in downtown Mesa, Arizona, 7 miles from the university’s Tempe campus. It will also occupy the new center of the university in Los Angeles.

The university did not make Poitier, who has been off the public for some time, available for an interview. His daughter Beverly Poitier-Henderson told The Associated Press that her father “is doing well and appreciating his family” and considers it an honor to be the namesake of the new film school.

Poitier-Henderson and two of Poitier’s other daughters have described in interviews how the film school’s emphasis on inclusiveness and access aligned with their father’s long-held ideals.

“If there is my father’s name on it, it must be inclusive, because it is the foundation of who he is and what he represents,” said Anika Poitier, like her filmmaker father. “And it’s important not only to have inclusion, but to have diversity and to give people the opportunity to tell their stories. I think it’s imperative to cast a wide net and allow whoever is called to tell their story to learn how to do it.

Sydney Poitier Heartsong, the actor’s youngest daughter, noted that the two most important things for her father growing up were education and the arts.

“These are the two tracks that run throughout his life, which define what he has contributed and define what he felt was important to pass on to his children,” she said. “The arts were also a form of education. He wanted to pass this on to all young people, but more particularly to young people of color.

Poitier Heartsong, who followed in her father’s footsteps as an actress, added that the new school had a special resonance at a time when “ we have come to recognize that from a socio-economic point of view, of many (elite) schools disproportionately exclude people of color – and people who cannot afford to attend. It’s the antithesis of what my father would like to be a part of.

And she noted that at Poitier’s heyday, when he won his Oscar, one of his biggest complaints was that “he was the only one up there, and he wanted the others to be with him. Well, others can’t be there with him if they don’t have access to these tools and training. Not the way the world works today. “

ASU’s film production programs now number 700 students, said Steven Tepper, dean of the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, but that number is expected to double in three to five years.

“I just hope that the students of the Sidney Poitier Film School take responsibility for how our father took up the torch when he approached his career,” Poitier-Henderson said, “and tell their stories regardless of finances. , which is easy for us to say. But you have to be true to yourself. It’s a very powerful thing, and I can’t wait to see who comes out of it.

Poitier’s longtime friend Harry Belafonte, who called Poitier a “dear human being and wonderful American citizen,” delivered a congratulatory message during the virtual unveiling.