A night at the movies with Black Power Wellington

Black Power are hosting a fundraising movie event during November, playing one of four "life changing" movies every Thursday of the month. Photo/ file

Fancy a night at the movies with your friendly local gang?

Wellington Black Power are hosting a fundraising movie event during November, playing one of four "life changing" movies every Thursday of the month.

The inaugural Black Power Film Festival offers wine, appetisers and discussion - perhaps not the first things most people would associate with a gang.

What we continue to try to do is challenge people's assumptions about who and what we are," Wellington Black Power member Eugene Ryder told Fairfax.

"We know we have assumptions of who and what people are outside of our communities, too.

"Films are a tool to have a discussion."

The first film, playing on November 3, is the 2013 movie How to Make Money Selling Drugs and Brian O'Dea, former international drug dealer who features in the movie, will join the post screening discussion via Skype.

Tickets are $100 which gets the buyer into all four movies as well as the drinks and nibbles on offer.

Money raised will go to the Consultancy, Advocacy and Research Trust (CART), the festival's sponsor.

CART specialises in working with at-risk communities.

Also on the bill are Kiwi drama The Dark Horse, African-American drama Raisin in the Sun, and former All Black Norm Hewitt's biopic Making Good Men.

The films will play at the Lighthouse Cuba cinema in Wellington.

Despite the first movie on the bill, Ryder said Black Power's Wellington chapter had a strict "no P" rule.

""We did that without external pressure, we just decided we had had enough of that shit."

Ryder, a gang member for 29 years, said the festival was "another opportunity for us to break down a lot of the barriers and the assumptions that are made about our communities".