BOMBA, BAILANDO EL TAMBOR (Bomba, Dancing the Drum). 56-minutes.

Directed and photographed by Ashley James, Searchlight Films

Contact SLFilms@aol.com

Produced by Roberta Singer, City Lore, the New York Center for Urban Folk Culture

Edited by Maureen Gosling

BOMBA, DANCING THE DRUM, is an infectious tribute to the legendary Cepeda family, known as the "patriarch family" of bomba, Puerto Rico's classic African-rooted music and dance. For nearly a century "la familia Cepeda" has been in the forefront of the struggle to keep the bomba tradition alive in Puerto Rico. Don Rafael Cepeda, the 86-year old patriarch of the family, learned from his grandfather and has passed it on to each of his 13 children who, in turn, are passing it on to their children and grandchildren.

BOMBA is a film saturated with the color, music and dance of Puerto Rico, but ultimately is a portrait of a remarkable family which has chosen to embrace the future with the strength of the past.

Glowing reviews include:

"Remarkable. Does for the exuberant and sexy Puerto Rican bomba what 'The Buena Vista Social Club' did for traditional Cuban music." - Valerie Gladstone, NEW YORK TIMES

"Stunning, intensely moving." - Sarah Kaufman, WASHINGTON POST

"A marvel!" - Elizabeth Zimmer, THE VILLAGE VOICE

"There is simply no other film like it in the world." - Juan Cartagena, GUIRO Y MARACA

Also winner of the Jean Rouch Award from the Bilan du Film Ethnographique, Paris, France, 2000