Cocktails & Cinema featuring ‘Chapter & Verse’

ImageNation Cinema Foundation will launch Cocktails & Cinema, a quarterly independent film series highlighting the global Black experience, starting June 24, at the Redhouse Arts Center. The Harlem-based entity will present two screenings of the independent film “Chapter & Verse.” Tickets include a reception with music spun by DJ K. Black, two complimentary drinks/soda and popcorn, a Q&A with director Jamal Joseph and food sold by Soul A La Carte.

A “New York Times” Critic’s Pick, “Chapter & Verse” features Omari Hardwick (“Power,” “Being Mary Jane”), Loretta Divine (“The Carmichael Show,” “Being Mary Jane”), Selenis Leyva (“Orange is the New Black”) and stars Daniel Beaty and Khadim Diop. In this film, reformed gang leader S. Lance Ingram returns home after serving eight years in prison, and struggles to adapt. When he assumes responsibility for Ty, a promising student who is pulled into a dangerous street gang, Lance risks sacrificing his “second chance” at freedom so that Ty can have a “first chance” at a better life.

The filmmaker, Jamal Joseph, is the former chair of Columbia University’s Graduate Film Program and a current professor at the university. He credits his time spent in the Black Panther Party and Leavenworth Federal Prison as the fire that forged his creative sword. While in prison, Joseph earned two college degrees, wrote five plays, two volumes of poetry and founded a ground-breaking theater company that brought prisoners together who previously were divided by race, culture and violence.

Tickets can be purchased online at www.imagenation.us or via cash at the door.