Dear Friend of NOAFEST, We need your help to keep Cinéma Première, our monthly celebration of new international and American films, alive and well! We want to continue to host free screenings and performances in a festive, interactive space of dialogue, bringing together a diverse public, united by the desire to enjoy powerful artistic experiences and to engage in meaningful exchange with filmmakers and other spectators. In 2008 Cinéma Première brought you South African filmmaker Zola Maseko for the New Orleans premiere of his feature film, Drum; American filmmaker Charles Burnett and his latest film, Namibia: The Struggle for Liberation; Ugandan-born director Lovinsa Kavuma (Rape for Who I Am) and American director Louise Hogarth (Angels in the Dust). In November we screened Spike Lee’s Miracle at St Anna as a tribute to firefighters,veterans and other unsung heroes and heroines ; and in December, our holiday offering to the City’s children was Kirikou, the animated film inspired by African oral tales. Our spring 2009 cycle, Cinéma Créole, will focus on films set in New Orleans’s sister communities, Haiti and the Caribbean. Please contribute whatever you can! A donation to us is tax-exempt. You may use Pay Pal by clicking on: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=1959118 Or send a check to NOAFEST: 2670 George Nick Connor Drive, New Orleans, LA 70119. Thanks and sincere good wishes for 2009! Eileen Julien Co-President of NOAFEST Joseph Gaï Ramaka Co-President and Festival Director Special Thanks