NET’s “Coffee and Conversation in the Community” film and discussion series opens with a 1 p.m. Feb. 16 screening of “The Trials of Muhammad Ali.”

The event, which is free and open to the public, is at the Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center.

A moderated discussion of the film follows the screening. The films are shown in partnership with ITVS Community Cinema, Lincoln community radio station KZUM (89.3 FM), the Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center, the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute and the Malone Community Center.

This feature-length documentary film covers Ali’s battle to overturn the five-year prison sentence he received for refusing U.S. military service.

Prior to becoming the most recognizable face on earth, Cassius Clay became Muhammad Ali and found himself in the crosshairs of conflicts concerning civil rights, religion, and wartime dissent. The fury he faced from an American public enraged by his opposition to the Vietnam War and unwilling to accept his conversion to Islam, has global implications for generations now coming of age amidst contemporary fissures involving freedom, faith and military conflict.

This film zeroes in on the years 1967 to 1970, when Ali lived in exile within the United States, stripped of his heavyweight belt and banned from boxing, sacrificing fame and fortune on principle. The film follow Ali’s struggle for justice through its final round in the Supreme Court.

The post-film discussion will be moderated by Michael Combs, professor of political science at UNL. Other panelists will be announced.

For more information on the series and NET Community Engagement and Educational Outreach, go to http://netNebraska.org/engage.