Remembering Billie Holiday

In PROUD, a recurring theme is music. The music of Harlem and Ireland helps set times and places in the story. At the beginning of the film, Lorenzo DuFau, his grandson and his grandson's friends bond over a love of legends like Lester Young, Duke Ellington and Billie Holiday, setting another theme: the connections over generations.

Billie Holiday was born 90 years and Billie Holiday: The Ultimate Collection, is a two CD/one DVD collection of her performances. Here's a good story about the music and the artist from NPR.

We could take a lesson from the squirrels (ok, insert nuts in the nation's capitol joke here) in DC. Seems black squirrels were brought in about 100 years ago, and according to the Washington Post story:

He (retired University of Maryland professor Vagn Flyger) has studied their behavior ... and determined that the squirrels don't appear to treat each other differently because they are black or gray.

"They don't seem to care," he said.

Take a look at this article from today's New York Times. It gives great examples of how movies like PROUD are being made ... and are succeeding ... outside the Hollywood system.

Belfast Telegraph

A great story about how Northern Ireland sees the film as such a positive. And, yes, they "out" Tommy Hilfiger as one of the extras!


From PROUD: Mason sailors run back to their ship in Derry.