Nate Parker, star of ‘The Great Debaters’ and writer/director/actor of the feature film ‘Birth of a Nation’ has established a film school at Wiley College.
While some people know Wiley College from the movie ‘The Great Debaters’, it is a private historically black college located in East Texas that has been around since 1873. This HBCU specializes in bachelors and masters degrees in liberal arts.
The school is set to pilot a film institute this summer with 30 selected students from Wiley and local high schools. So why Wiley? Parker kept in contact with the school after filming ‘The Great Debaters’ and the schools’ a cappella choir is being featured on the soundtrack to ‘Birth of a Nation.’
Parker’s goal is also to empower young people in East Texas to tell their own stories.
“You control the moving picture, you control the masses. So really getting them rallied around the idea of re-claiming the narrative of America, specifically through the eyes of people of color.”- Nate Parker.
In an interview with The Root, Parker said “The hope is that we cover all aspects of filmmaking; from sound, lighting and cinematography to just studying film specifically with the cultural component and the history of film.”
Wiley College was happy to announce the opening of the school this fall on Twitter.
Tonight the @NateParker School of Film and Drama was officially announced and will institutionalize at Wiley, Fall 2016. #Wiley_RYS16
— Wiley College (@WileyCollege) March 20, 2016
-Emily Aikens
