NEW YORK (AP) – In 1963 Sidney Poitier made a movie in Arizona, “Lilies of the Field”. The performance led to a huge milestone: he became the first black winner of a lead actor Oscar.
Now Arizona is the site of a new career milestone for the legendary actor and filmmaker – Arizona State University has named its new film school after him. The Sidney Poitier New American Film School was unveiled on Monday during a virtual ceremony.
The decision to name the school after Poitier, 93, is about much more than his accomplishments and legacy, but because he “ embodies in person what we want to be – matching excellence and drive and passion with social purpose and social outcomes, ” all the things his career has really been about, ”said Michael M. Crow, president of the university.
“You’re looking for an icon, a person who embodies everything you stand for,” Crow said in a previous interview. “At Sidney Poitier it is his creative energy, his dynamism, his drive, his ambition, the types of projects he has worked on, the ways in which he has moved his life forward.”
“Look at his life: it’s a story of a person who has found a way,” he said of the actor, who was born in Miami and grew up in the Bahamas, the son of tomato farmers, before starting a career that was small to small, hard-won theater parties to eventual Hollywood stardom. “How do we help other young people find their way?”
The university, which is expanding its existing film program into its own school, says it has invested millions of dollars in technology to create one of the largest, most accessible and most diverse film schools. Crow said that like the wider university, the film school will measure success not by exclusivity but by inclusivity.
By expanding both its physical resources and flexible learning options such as studying online, it hopes to enroll thousands more students and teach them skills that go far beyond traditional film making.
The school will move to a new facility in downtown Mesa, Arizona, 7 miles from the university’s Tempe Campus in the fall of 2022. It will also occupy the new center of the university in Los Angeles.
The university did not make Poitier, who has been out of the public eye for some time, available for an interview. His daughter Beverly Poitier-Henderson told The Associated Press that her father was “ doing well and enjoying his family, ” and was honored to be the namesake of the new film school.
Poitier-Henderson and two of Poitier’s other daughters described in interviews how the film school’s emphasis on inclusivity and access matched their father’s long-held ideals.
“If my father’s name is on it, it has to be inclusive, because that’s the foundation of who he is and what he stands for,” said Anika Poitier, like her father, a filmmaker. “And it’s important not only to have inclusion, but also diversity, and to give people the opportunity to tell their story. I think it’s imperative to cast a broad net and let everyone who gets called to tell their story learn how to do it. “
Sydney Poitier Heartsong, the actor’s youngest daughter, commented that the two most important things to her father growing up were education and art.
“Those are the two tracks that run through his life that define what he contributed and what he thought was important to pass on to his children,” she said. “The arts were also a form of education. He wanted to pass this on to all young people, but especially to young people of color. ”
Poitier Heartsong, who followed in her father’s footsteps in acting, added that the new school had a special resonance at a time when “ we have come to recognize that from a socio-economic standpoint, many (elite) schools disproportionately exclude people of color. – and people without the resources to go to them. That is the antithesis of what my father would like to be. “
And she noted that in Poitier’s heyday, when he won his Oscar, one of his biggest complaints was that “he was the only one up there, and he wanted others up there with him. Others cannot be there with him if they do not have access to these tools and these training courses. Not like the world works today. “
The ASU film production programs now enroll 700 students, said Steven Tepper, dean of the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts there, but that number is expected to double in three to five years.
“I just hope that the students of the Sidney Poitier Film School will take on the mantle of responsibility as our father took it up when he started out in his career,” said Poitier-Henderson, “and tell their stories regardless of finances. which is easy for us to say. But you have to be true to yourself. It’s a very powerful thing, and I’m looking forward to seeing who comes out. ”
With a message of congratulations on the virtual unveiling, Poitier’s old friend Harry Belafonte, who called Poitier “a dear human being and a wonderful American citizen.”