April 18, 2012

Join filmmaker Maggie Hadleigh-West for a screening of Player Hating: A Love Story on Thursday, April 12th at 7 PM in the Skyview Room, 6th Floor, MacAlister Hall (33rd & Chestnut Sts.). The free screening is sponsored by The Westphal College, The Kal & Lucille Rudman Institute for Entertainment Industry Studies, The College of Arts & Sciences’ Department of Culture & Communication and the Africana Studies program.

An official selection of the Sheffield Doc/Fest and winner of Indie Fest’s Audience Impact Award, Player Hating: A Love Story is a feature length documentary that delves deeply and intimately into the lives of some of society’s forgotten citizens. Written, directed and produced by Maggie Hadleigh-West, the award-winning filmmaker of War Zone, Player Hating: A Love Story is told through the eyes of Half-a-Mill, a 26 year-old hip-hop artist from the Albany Housing Projects in Crown Heights, New York. The movie follows Half-a-Mill and his crew as they write, perform and launch his first album, Million. True to the origins of hip-hop as an art form, Half’s lyrics are a searing chronicle of life in the ‘hood’ that hauntingly mirror the frustration and despair that forged the birth of the genre nearly 40 years ago. Through the eyes of an urban poet and philosopher, Player Hating: A Love Story reveals the tragedy of living in a community abandoned by society, but maintained through humor, dignity, and the will to survive.