Digital City

Urbanworld Film Festival kicks off it's five-day run on Sept. 10 with an opening night red-carpet premiere of comic legend Steve Harvey's new stand-up film, Steve Harvey: Still Trippin' at the Magic Johnson Theaters in Harlem.

Presented this year by BET as part of a three-year partnership, the festival is celebrating its 12th year of promoting urban filmmaking and celebrating multicultural points of view. Over the years, Urbanworld has premiered hits like Hustle & Flow, Collateral, Rush Hour 2, The Woodsman and How Stella Got Her Groove Back. In fact, Harvey's first splash at Urbanworld was in 2000 with the premiere of his ensemb joint, The Original Kings of Comedy directed by Spike Lee.

World Premieres
The world premieres for the 2008 festival are heavy films worthy of OSCAR nods in feature and doc categories:
- John Dziura's Number One With a Bullet explores the violence in hip-hop showing the commonality of major rap stars that have been shot. The film features Young Buck, Ice Cube, Mos Def, KRS-One and Fat Joe among others
- Phantom Punch by I'm Gonna Git You Robert Townsend is a biopic of boxing great Sonny Liston with the badass Ving Rhames throwing the punches as Liston
- The Real Great Debaters, directed by Brad Osborne, is the (can you guess) real story behind WIey College's 1935 debate team that inspired Denzel Washington's The Great Debaters
- Two Tunrtables and a Microphone is Guy Logan's and Stephon Watford's doc investigation into the suspicious and untimely death of Run DMC's Jam Master Jay, gunned down in his Queens studio
- Seal Team IV is a feature based on real-life adventures of counter-terrorism black ops missions in Operation: Desert Storm

Other films of note are Wu: The Story of the Wu-Tang Clan, This Is Not a Test, Cigarettes for Breakfast Truth Hall, the award-winning Something Is Killing Tate and the special closing night movie, The Secret Life of Bees starring the festival's Honorary Chair, Queen Latifah.

Cinemax is showing a preview of the new book-based urban sexy series, Zane's Sex Chronicles ahead of its Oct. 10 cable premiere.

Other Activites
As a competitive festival, Urbanworld also features panels and the VIP pass gets you into these activites as well. Urbanworld After Dark are festival after-parties scheduled for the sexy Room Service in Manhattan and sponsored by Grey Goose.

Price, Place and Time
VIP passes are $500 and get you unlimited access to all the screenings for the five days, admittance into panels, events and after-parties. Student and filmmaker discounts are available. The opening night red-carpet premiere is at the AMC Magic Johnson Theaters. All of the other screenings are at AMC 34th Street Theaters and Tribeca Film Center. For a full schedule, check out Urbanworld's official site.