The Coca - Cola Lounge featuring guest celebrities reigns as the largest West Coast Loving Day celebration hosted by the Mixed Roots Film 's38; Literary Festival at the Japanese American National Museum, 369 East 1st Street, June 12, 2009, at 6:30pm, in downtown Los Angeles.
The free mixer, sponsored by the Coca - Cola Company, features the Coca - Cola Lounge for drinks and cool fun while DJs Life and Vika spin decades of dance floor classics.
The Festival'ss Loving Day party celebrates the Supreme Court decision which affirmed the right of people of different races to marry. The party is held in conjunction with the
1000-person New York City Loving Day celebration hosted by Loving Day.
In the Obama age, the Festival, a free two-day event, celebrates storytelling of the Mixed racial and cultural experience including transracial/transcultural adoption and
interracial/intercultural relationships.
The Festival, a fiscally sponsored project of the New York Foundation for the Arts, a non-profit organization, brings together film and book lovers, innovative and emerging artists, and
multiracial families and individuals for two days of workshops, readings, film screenings and live performance including music, comedy and spoken word.
The Festival highlights include:
Writer and producer Angela Nissel (Mixed, Scrubs) will receive the Festival'ss award for inspirational storytelling of the Mixed experience during the Saturday night Loving Prize
Presentation, June 13, 2009 at 6pm, which features musician Jason Luckett, actor Chris Williams, and comedian Maija DiGiorgio.
The Melting Pot Moms, a multiracial family support group, will host a Family Event on Saturday, June 13, 2009 at 10:30am-12:30pm, for kids ages 3-11, featuring TV actress Kim Wayans and
husband, Kevin Knotts, reading from their popular children'ss book series, Amy Hodgepodge.
Hollywood actors and writers discuss Mixed in Hollywood in a special panel on Saturday, June 13, 2009 12:50pm-1:50pm.
Among the dozen films that the Festival will screen is the award-winning In the Name of the Son (dir. Harun Mehmedinovic), which was an Official Selection of the Festival de Cannes and
winner of the AFI Directing Award. Making her directing debut is the popular You Tube vlogger Tiffany Jones of the Mulatto Diaries.
The Festival includes author readings by award-winning author Danzy Senna (Caucasia, Where Did You Sleep Last Night), Bellwether Prize winning novelist Gayle Brandeis (The Book of Dead
Birds, Self-Storage) and poet Neil Aitken (Winner of the Philip Levine Prize, The Lost Country of Sight, Anhinga Press), among others.
All the events are free and open to the public. The complete schedule can be found on-line at www.mxroots.org. Pre-registration is strongly encouraged
especially for the Loving Day Party. On-line registration is now open at www.mxroots.org.
Festival sponsors include: Japanese American National Museum, Social Justice Works!: The Aaronson Fund, Zerflin.com the Coca - Cola Company, Trader Joe'ss, and Subway.