Film Screening and Conversation: FIGMOS PTL by Doug Ruffin
Thursday, May 30, 2024
7 pm EDT
Photo: Doug Ruffin
FREE
Lipsey Auditorium, Knox Building
Join us for a screening and conversation with historian Doug Ruffin.
Ruffin is the owner of Urban Legacy Filmworks, an independent multimedia company, and Content Curator of The Buffalo History Channel, an online video source showcasing unique stories of Western New York’s history. Ruffin will feature a short documentary with a unique relationship with the exhibition Before and After Again. The exhibition includes paintings by Julia Bottoms featuring imagery directly indebted to Ruffin’s recordings. Ruffin’s documentary explores the history of a Black-owned grocery store on Jefferson Avenue from 1981 to 1983, FIGMOS PTL, an acronym for “Finally I Got My Own Supermarket, Praise The Lord.”
After the screening, Ruffin will speak about his commitment to documentary filmmaking, history storytelling, and the founding of the Buffalo History Channel, which Ruffin launched in 1997 with his first film project, B.U.I.L.D. – Of the community & for the community.
Curator of Public Art Aaron Ott will join Doug Ruffin and the artist Julia Bottoms to moderate a conversation about how we can expand the legacies of our city more broadly, creatively, and efficiently through history, storytelling, and cultural activities.