This year's conference Teaching Cinematic Images and Women's Empowerment will merge a collection of films from several continents and highlight the struggles women engage in to effect self-empowerment. Films discussed at the conference include Mz. Meduse (American) by Alile Sharon Larkin; Hair Piece (American) by Ayoka Chenzira; Illusions (American) by Julie Dash; Like Water for Chocolate (Mexican) by Alfonso Arau; These Hands (African) by Flora M'Mgugu-Schelling; The Women of Brewster Place (American) by Gloria Naylor; The Piano (Australian) by Jane Champion; The Joy Luck Club (Chinese) by Amy Tan; The Scent of a Green Papaya (Vietnamese) by Christope Rossignon; and Waiting to Exhale (American) by Terry McMillan.

Independent Black Filmmaker Alile Sharon Larkin will deliver the keynote luncheon address Genocide: the Real American Taboo, a Black Man and Woman on Screen. During the 1970's, Larkin was a key player in the Black Independent Film Movement that started at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her films include Dreadlocks and the Three Bears, Miss Flucci Moses, and a Different Image, which won the Black American Cinema Society of Independent Filmmakers Award.

The conference is workshops are free and open to the public. The cost for the luncheon is $35 and $25 for students. For more information, call 823-2100 or 382-7678.