Harlem Park Hosting Free Film Screening For NYC Homecoming Week

HARLEM, NY — A free movie screening is coming to a Harlem park this week, part of the citywide celebration of New York's reopening.

"Blood Brothers," a new documentary that examines the "unlikely friendship" between Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali, will be shown at 8:30 p.m. Wednesday at Jackie Robinson Park. It's free to attend, but you must RSVP in advance.

Proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test will be required to enter.

The screening is part of "Homecoming Week," the citywide event running through Aug. 22 that also includes concerts in five boroughs and a number of other film screenings.

It will culminate Saturday with the "Homecoming Concert" in Central Park, a star-studded affair whose performers will include Bruce Springsteen, Jennifer Hudson, LL Cool J, Patti Smith, Paul Simon and others.

The screening at Jackie Robinson Park is one of six happening across the city this week. Other events include a Spike Lee documentary at Rockefeller Center on Tuesday and Questlove's new "Summer of Soul" film, about the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival, at Brooklyn's Fort Greene Park on Thursday.

Directed by Marcus A. Clarke, "Blood Brothers" tells the story of the bond between the "charismatic and outspoken Olympic champion who charmed the nation, and the excon-turned-intellectual revolutionary who railed against the evils of white oppression by speaking truth to power."

Doors open at 6:30 p.m., followed by a DJ set at 7 p.m. A short conversation will follow between Clarke and Inney Prakash, a programmer at Harlem's Maysles Documentary Center, before the film starts.

To attend, RSVP and then enter Jackie Robinson Park through the Bradhurst Avenue and 148th Street entrance. The screening will be held at the Amphitheater Plaza. (The venue is also wheelchair accessible through a ramp further north on Bradhurst.)