Documentary Screening & Filmmaker Discussion “RAYMOND LEWIS: L.A. LEGEND”

Please join the Department of Radio–Television–Film, the Center for Sports Communication & Media, and Moody College’s office for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for a special screening of the documentary RAYMOND LEWIS: L.A. LEGEND.

RAYMOND LEWIS: L.A. LEGEND (2022 finalist for Library of Congress’s Lavine/Ken Burns Prize for
Film) is a critically acclaimed documentary that tells the incredible story of a basketball phenom from
Watts, California whom many believe was blackballed from the NBA in the’70s – and his unlikely and
heartbreaking journey in becoming a hoops legend.

Immediately following the screening, stick around for a panel discussion moderated by RTF Assistant Professor Adrien Sebro with filmmaker Ryan Polomski (UT RTF MFA ’04) and Lance Blanks (UT RTF BS ’90), a UT basketball legend, NBA executive, broadcaster, and member of the Center for Sports Communication & Media advisory council.

PANELISTS

• RYAN POLOMSKI – Filmmaker
  A graduate of the UT Radio-Television-Film MFA in Film & Media program, Ryan Polomski is a documentary and television director, producer, and editor living in Los Angeles, CA. His first feature documentary, “State vs. Reed,” won an Audience Award at the SXSW Film Festival before being broadcast on Texas PBS stations, raising awareness of the highly controversial death sentence of Rodney Reed.
• LANCE BLANKS – Panelist / Former NBA player and manager
  RTF alum Lance Blanks is a former professional basketball player who went on to work in NBA front offices, including as Director of Scouting for the San Antonio Spurs, Assistant General Manager for the Cleveland Cavaliers and General Manager for the Phoenix Suns. A former Texas high school “Mr. Basketball,” Blanks helped lead the Longhorns to the Elite Eight in the 1990 NCAA Tournament and was inducted into the University of Texas Hall of Honor in 2007. He is a college basketball color analyst for ESPN and the Longhorn Network and serves on the advisory council for Moody College’s Center for Sports Communication & Media. Blanks is part of a family legacy in professional Sports with his father, Sid, playing eight years of professional football in the NFL. Lance’s cousin, Larvel Blanks, played Major League baseball for eight years as well.
• ADRIEN SEBRO – Moderator
  Adrien Sebro is an assistant professor of media studies at the University of Texas at Austin. He specializes in critical media studies at the intersections of comedy, gender, and Black popular culture. He is currently completing his first book manuscript with Rutgers University Press, Scratchin’ and Survivin’: Hustle Economics and the Black Sitcoms of Tandem Productions, which explores a production history of Black economics in the all-Black cast sitcoms of Tandem Productions: Sanford and Son (1972-1977), Good Times (1974-1979), and The Jeffersons (1975-1985).