Arts & Culture

Walker Art Center’s annual Queer Takes film festival, June 23-25, may be shorter this year due to budget cuts, but it’s a great kick-off to summer movie season. Lydia Howell has a preview.

06-22-09

Bettye LaVette is in town tonight at the Dakota Jazz Club in Minneapolis. LaVette is an overnight success story that was 47 years in the making. Her unique sound is being embraced by new and old fans alike. She took some time out today to speak with KFAI’s Marty Owings.

06-11-09

Minneapolis artist Peter Gross has been writing and illustrating comic books for over 20 years, mostly notably on the series THE BOOKS OF MAGIC and LUCIFER. KFAI’s Britt Aamodt spoke to him about his latest series, THE UNWRITTEN, which had its debut last week.

05-21-09

Between August 1998 and December 1999, community and environmental activists tried to stop the reroute of Highway 55 in south Minneapolis in order to protect Coldwater Spring, a sacred water source, and oak trees that stood on parkland. Stop the Re-Route: Taking a Stand on Sacred Land is a documentary film about those events.

V-Day is a four-day event to stop violence against women and girls locally and internationally. The highlight of this year’s event is a concert and the annual production of the Vagina Monologues beginning Thursday, March 5. KFAI’s Lydia Howell has more.

Clint Eastwood’s film, Gran Torino, wowed movie goers and the Hmong community alike, by touting a large cast of new Hmong actors. Will Wright caught up with some of the stars, though not Clint Eastwood, to talk about what the film means to the Hmong community and their stories.

3-4-2009

Thursday, February 26th at 11 am Laura Flynn joins Write on Radio hosts in the studio to talk about her warmly received memoir about growing up in the care of a schizophrenic mother. Her book, Swallow the Ocean, has recently been issued in paperback.

In the second half of the show, Reese Erlich talks about his newest book, _Dateline Havana: The Real Story of U.S.

A historical milestone in civil rights is honored with a musical by Youth Performance Company (YPC). KFAI’s Lydia Howell reviews the piece.

For more interviews with these YPC performers go to the Catalyst archives on the KFAI website:http://www.kfai.org/node/57 .

February 18, 2009

[img_assist|nid=17814|title=|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=185|height=83]KFAI will celebrate Black History Month with a special day of programming on February 19th. From 6am until 9:30pm, KFAI will feature a variety of programming including music, history, and dialogue from members of the Twin Cities community and from respected national sources.

Laurent Cantet, director of the acclaimed French film, THE CLASS, is interviewed by Caryl Minnetti on the program of Sunday, February 15,8:30-9:30 P.M. The film follows the experiences of Francois (played by Francois Begaudeau, who wrote the screenplay based on his own experiences) and his fellow teachers as they prepare for a new year at a high school in a tough neighborhood.