Barbara O. Jones, the admired actress who emerged from the L.A. Rebellion movement of Black filmmakers at UCLA in the 1970s to star in Haile Gerima’s Bush Mama and Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust, has died. She was 82.
Jones died Tuesday at her home in Dayton, Ohio, her brother, Raymond Minor, told The Hollywood Reporter.
“Rest In Peace & Power,” Dash wrote on Instagram.
View this post on Instagram
A post shared by Julie Dash (@dash_julie)
For Gerima, Jones portrayed an imprisoned woman fighting for social justice in the 36-minute short film Child of Resistance (1973) — the character was inspired by activist Angela Davis — and a welfare recipient in Watts who undergoes an ideological transformation in the filmmaker’s feature debut, Bush Mama (1979). Both films were made at UCLA.
Jones starred as a Ugandan nun questioning her faith in Dash’s 13-minute student film Diary of an...
Jones died Tuesday at her home in Dayton, Ohio, her brother, Raymond Minor, told The Hollywood Reporter.
“Rest In Peace & Power,” Dash wrote on Instagram.
View this post on Instagram
A post shared by Julie Dash (@dash_julie)
For Gerima, Jones portrayed an imprisoned woman fighting for social justice in the 36-minute short film Child of Resistance (1973) — the character was inspired by activist Angela Davis — and a welfare recipient in Watts who undergoes an ideological transformation in the filmmaker’s feature debut, Bush Mama (1979). Both films were made at UCLA.
Jones starred as a Ugandan nun questioning her faith in Dash’s 13-minute student film Diary of an...
- 4/18/2024
- by Mike Barnes
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Most filmmakers only really get going when the pain of not making a movie finally boils over to the point where it exceeds the pain of making a movie. And once this pivotal point-of-no-return is reached, the accumulated velocity of ambition will not allow petty inconveniences to impede the ultimate realization of its goal. Not even a punishing lack of start-up capital–or even, it turns out, a torrential Southern California downpour choking the streets of LA to a frigid standstill.
So despite being rescheduled from February 6 due to an aggressive late-winter rainfall, Fi’s Filmmaker Tuesday session, The Evolution of Microbudget Filmmaking, finally happened last week on March 19, featuring a panel of four acclaimed indie producers and directors (not to mention Fi Fellows!) who have all managed to make big waves with their work despite microscopic production budgets. They were: Iram Parveen Bilal, Ron Najor, Gia Rigoli and Avril Speaks.
So despite being rescheduled from February 6 due to an aggressive late-winter rainfall, Fi’s Filmmaker Tuesday session, The Evolution of Microbudget Filmmaking, finally happened last week on March 19, featuring a panel of four acclaimed indie producers and directors (not to mention Fi Fellows!) who have all managed to make big waves with their work despite microscopic production budgets. They were: Iram Parveen Bilal, Ron Najor, Gia Rigoli and Avril Speaks.
- 3/27/2024
- by Matt Warren
- Film Independent News & More
Around halfway through the fifth episode of Marvel’s Echo, viewers are dropped into the experience of a Choctaw Nation powwow. It’s a first-of-its-kind moment for the MCU, featuring dancers in regalia singing to the drum-driven music. In a poorly lit nearby barn stands Alaqua Cox’s Maya Lopez, in a face-off alongside the women of her family against a notorious New York crime kingpin, Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio).
Director Sydney Freeland pitched the moment to Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige by recalling how she grew up reading Marvel Comics and attending powwows.
“I’ve read comic books at powwows, for sure — I’ve probably fallen asleep reading comic books at powwows — but those two things never overlapped,” Freeland tells The Hollywood Reporter. “So to have those things come together, to have Kingpin at a powwow, it is a very surreal experience.”
The Marvel Cinematic Universe has wooed Oscar-winning...
Director Sydney Freeland pitched the moment to Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige by recalling how she grew up reading Marvel Comics and attending powwows.
“I’ve read comic books at powwows, for sure — I’ve probably fallen asleep reading comic books at powwows — but those two things never overlapped,” Freeland tells The Hollywood Reporter. “So to have those things come together, to have Kingpin at a powwow, it is a very surreal experience.”
The Marvel Cinematic Universe has wooed Oscar-winning...
- 1/16/2024
- by Abbey White
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
February––particularly its third week––is all about romance. Accordingly the Criterion Channel got creative with their monthly programming and, in a few weeks, will debut Interdimensional Romance, a series of films wherein “passion conquers time and space, age and memory, and even death and the afterlife.” For every title you might’ve guessed there’s a wilder companion: Alan Rudolph’s Made In Heaven, Soderbergh’s remake, and Resnais’ Love Unto Death. Mostly I’m excited to revisit Francis Ford Coppola’s Youth Without Youth, a likely essential viewing before Megalopolis.
February also marks Black History Month, and Criterion’s series will include work by Shirley Clarke (also subject of a standalone series), Garrett Bradley, Cheryl Dunye, and Julie Dash, while movies by Sirk, Minnelli, King Vidor, and Lang play in “Gothic Noir.” Greta Gerwig gets an “Adventures in Moviegoing” and can be seen in Mary Bronstein’s Yeast,...
February also marks Black History Month, and Criterion’s series will include work by Shirley Clarke (also subject of a standalone series), Garrett Bradley, Cheryl Dunye, and Julie Dash, while movies by Sirk, Minnelli, King Vidor, and Lang play in “Gothic Noir.” Greta Gerwig gets an “Adventures in Moviegoing” and can be seen in Mary Bronstein’s Yeast,...
- 1/11/2024
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
Exclusive: New York-based Women Make Movies has acquired U.S. rights for Palestinian Oscar entry Bye Bye Tiberias by Lina Soualem.
The intimate work sees Soualem accompany her Palestinian-French actress mother Hiam Abbass back to the Arab village within Israeli borders, which she left in the 1980s to pursue her acting career in Europe.
There, they reflect on her past as well as the lives of Abbass’ mother and grandmother in a powerful work exploring themes of displacement, identity and survival across four generations of women.
Wmm executive director Debra Zimmerman said the film was a “perfect fit” for the label, which aims to put spotlight on the work of female filmmakers.
“It is a beautiful film about four generations of Palestinian women,” she said. “I am thrilled that we have the opportunity to have this film seen widely right now by the diverse audiences that need and deserve to see it.
The intimate work sees Soualem accompany her Palestinian-French actress mother Hiam Abbass back to the Arab village within Israeli borders, which she left in the 1980s to pursue her acting career in Europe.
There, they reflect on her past as well as the lives of Abbass’ mother and grandmother in a powerful work exploring themes of displacement, identity and survival across four generations of women.
Wmm executive director Debra Zimmerman said the film was a “perfect fit” for the label, which aims to put spotlight on the work of female filmmakers.
“It is a beautiful film about four generations of Palestinian women,” she said. “I am thrilled that we have the opportunity to have this film seen widely right now by the diverse audiences that need and deserve to see it.
- 12/8/2023
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- Deadline Film + TV
Though we aim to discuss a wide breadth of films each year, few things give us more pleasure than the arrival of bold, new voices. It’s why we venture to festivals and pore over a variety of different features that might bring to light some emerging talent. This year was an especially notable time for new directors making their stamp, and we’re highlighting the handful of 2023 debuts that most impressed us.
Below one can check out a list spanning a variety of different genres, and many are available to stream here. In years to come, take note as these helmers (hopefully) ascend.
All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt (Raven Jackson)
Raven Jackson’s directorial debut All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt is a distillation of cinema to its purest form, a stunning patchwork of experience and memory. Daring in its formal gambits but universal for how it explores humanity’s connection with nature,...
Below one can check out a list spanning a variety of different genres, and many are available to stream here. In years to come, take note as these helmers (hopefully) ascend.
All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt (Raven Jackson)
Raven Jackson’s directorial debut All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt is a distillation of cinema to its purest form, a stunning patchwork of experience and memory. Daring in its formal gambits but universal for how it explores humanity’s connection with nature,...
- 11/29/2023
- by The Film Stage
- The Film Stage
Discontent stirs in a village that has rejected modern life to follow a faith healer said to be the representative of the title’s water spirit
This visually beautiful and charismatically acted film is a fierce expressionist reverie or parable of power, shot in a lustrous, high-contrast black-and-white by cinematographer Lílis Soares. It is the work of Nigerian director Cj “Fiery” Obasi, whose nickname makes an interesting elemental contrast to his movie’s watery theme. His storytelling urgency and stripped-down minimalism reminded me at various stages of George Orwell and Julie Dash.
We are in a west African village called Iyi, which has ignored the modern world of science and technology in favour of worshipping the traditional water spirit Mami Wata, through her intermediary and representative on Earth, faith-healer Mama Efe (Rita Edochie), to whom tributes of food and money must be paid. But Efe’s daughter Zinwe (Uzoamaka Aniunoh...
This visually beautiful and charismatically acted film is a fierce expressionist reverie or parable of power, shot in a lustrous, high-contrast black-and-white by cinematographer Lílis Soares. It is the work of Nigerian director Cj “Fiery” Obasi, whose nickname makes an interesting elemental contrast to his movie’s watery theme. His storytelling urgency and stripped-down minimalism reminded me at various stages of George Orwell and Julie Dash.
We are in a west African village called Iyi, which has ignored the modern world of science and technology in favour of worshipping the traditional water spirit Mami Wata, through her intermediary and representative on Earth, faith-healer Mama Efe (Rita Edochie), to whom tributes of food and money must be paid. But Efe’s daughter Zinwe (Uzoamaka Aniunoh...
- 11/15/2023
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
The Last King of Scotland.In 2007, Forest Whitaker won the Academy Award for his performance as Ugandan dictator and army general Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland (2006), becoming only the fourth Black man to win Best Actor. Lauded as the role of his career, critics praised his “full-throated, technically accomplished” performance, and his ability to “seize the space and show us how he can rage”.“Full-throated” the performance was indeed, but it was a throat filled with an accent that neither sounded like Amin’s nor any person from Koboko, northern Uganda, where the general was born. “Technically accomplished,” but the accent, directed by dialect coach Robert Easton, was neither technical, nor accomplished. Linguistically speaking, Whitaker’s accent is riddled with instances of the US English rhotic R pronunciation (which is pronounced at the back of the throat without a trill), and a combination of vowel pronunciations from across East Africa,...
- 11/9/2023
- MUBI
Chicago – Reflective and observational films … as if the audience is inside looking out along with the the characters … are very rare and takes a quality creator to pull off. One such film is “All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt” and it is written and directed by a quality creator, the poet-turned-filmmaker Raven Jackson.
Rating: 4.0/5.0
The film is a visual tone poem, as a woman named Mack (Charleen McClure) goes from her childhood to adulthood learning her life lessons – with its growth, loves, heartache and memories – as a black woman in Mississippi, with her sister ally Josie (Moses Ingram) and various friends, lovers and family.
’All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt,’ Written & Directed by Raven Jackson (inset)
Photo credit: A24
The film harkens back to an obvious influence, Julie Dash’s “Daughters of the Dust” (1991), but with a different story and a current generational point of view. Filmmaker Raven Jackson is contemplative in her energies,...
Rating: 4.0/5.0
The film is a visual tone poem, as a woman named Mack (Charleen McClure) goes from her childhood to adulthood learning her life lessons – with its growth, loves, heartache and memories – as a black woman in Mississippi, with her sister ally Josie (Moses Ingram) and various friends, lovers and family.
’All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt,’ Written & Directed by Raven Jackson (inset)
Photo credit: A24
The film harkens back to an obvious influence, Julie Dash’s “Daughters of the Dust” (1991), but with a different story and a current generational point of view. Filmmaker Raven Jackson is contemplative in her energies,...
- 11/9/2023
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
The sound of chirping cicadas, calling to their mates. The feel of the scales on a freshly caught fish. The way the late afternoon light reflects off a backwoods creek, as a fishing bobber floats idly on the surface. You hear thunder crack in the distance; you can practically smell the ozone in the air that lingers before a lightning strike. A hand dips into the brackish water near the shore, the dark silt run between fingers causing it to muddy and cloud before slowly ebbing away …
It is admittedly...
It is admittedly...
- 11/3/2023
- by David Fear
- Rollingstone.com
Do you see her? The Black mother wiping her son’s inner eye on a Harlem corner? It’s the late ’90s and she’s piecing her life back together after a prison stint. What about the mother positioning an infant for a photo? She works at a studio, tucked in a Bay Area mall, trying to make ends meet before the birth of her third child. Or the Black mother lounging in her living room during a party? Guests, drunk on liquor and a good time, buzz around her as a young girl plays at her feet.
These women are the central figures of three revelatory dramas released this year. In A.V. Rockwell’s A Thousand and One, Savanah Leaf’s Earth Mama and Raven Jackson’s All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt, which opens in limited release Nov. 3, Black mothers assume more complex roles than the ones Hollywood usually affords them.
These women are the central figures of three revelatory dramas released this year. In A.V. Rockwell’s A Thousand and One, Savanah Leaf’s Earth Mama and Raven Jackson’s All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt, which opens in limited release Nov. 3, Black mothers assume more complex roles than the ones Hollywood usually affords them.
- 11/1/2023
- by Lovia Gyarkye
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
The first image in writer-director Raven Jackson’s All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt—a close-up of a hand squeezing a freshly caught fish, its reflective scales mirrored by the twinkling, gauzy light captured on 35mm by cinematographer Jomo Fray—quickly immerses us in the film’s world. The relationship between bodies and the natural world that surrounds them, mediated by the physical properties of film, is central to Jackson’s work. As the scene progresses, the camera’s focus remains resolutely on what may seem like its incidental textures, tracking the interplay of skin, earth, and water as if they were brushstrokes on a canvas.
The elemental poeticism of these images is clear evidence of Jackson’s promise as a filmmaker, and yet this opening sequence also points to why All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt amounts to a limited showcase for her talents. Essentially all of the film’s aesthetic,...
The elemental poeticism of these images is clear evidence of Jackson’s promise as a filmmaker, and yet this opening sequence also points to why All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt amounts to a limited showcase for her talents. Essentially all of the film’s aesthetic,...
- 10/6/2023
- by Brad Hanford
- Slant Magazine
Charles Burnett is best known for his landmark portraits of Black American life, from the aching neorealism of “Killer of Sheep” to the mordant mysticism of “To Sleep with Anger,” his films aim to depict the broken contract the country made with its African American citizens in the aftermath of World War II.
His lesser-known masterpiece “My Brother’s Wedding,” however, is emblematic of a different continuum running through Burnett’s films: the theme of becoming.
An intimate window into early ’80s Los Angeles, where confluences of Black Southern roots were still trying to flower in a hostile urban environment — “My Brother’s Wedding” is a heated tale about the perils of upward mobility, the rising drug epidemic, and the tight alliance shared by two Black men, Pierce (Everett Silas) and Soldier (Ronnie Bell), the latter of whom has just been released from prison as the film begins.
Young and proudly working-class,...
His lesser-known masterpiece “My Brother’s Wedding,” however, is emblematic of a different continuum running through Burnett’s films: the theme of becoming.
An intimate window into early ’80s Los Angeles, where confluences of Black Southern roots were still trying to flower in a hostile urban environment — “My Brother’s Wedding” is a heated tale about the perils of upward mobility, the rising drug epidemic, and the tight alliance shared by two Black men, Pierce (Everett Silas) and Soldier (Ronnie Bell), the latter of whom has just been released from prison as the film begins.
Young and proudly working-class,...
- 8/17/2023
- by Robert Daniels
- Indiewire
Far and away the best film to premiere at Sundance Film Festival this year was Raven Jackson’s directorial debut All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt. Produced by Barry Jenkins and edited by Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s collaborator Lee Chatametikool, the film takes a beautifully poetic decades-spanning look at a woman’s life in Mississippi. Nine months after its Sundance premiere, the film will finally resurface as part of New York Film Festival’s just-announced Main Slate followed by an A24 release later this fall. Ahead of the release, the first trailer and poster have arrived.
I said in my review, “Raven Jackson’s directorial debut All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt is a distillation of cinema to its purest form, a stunning patchwork of experience and memory. Daring in its formal gambits but universal for how it explores humanity’s connection with nature, loss, and love, it’s among few...
I said in my review, “Raven Jackson’s directorial debut All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt is a distillation of cinema to its purest form, a stunning patchwork of experience and memory. Daring in its formal gambits but universal for how it explores humanity’s connection with nature, loss, and love, it’s among few...
- 8/9/2023
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
There’s no joint like a Spike Lee Joint, but what other movies does the director love?
Over four decades and 30 films, Brooklyn-raised Lee has established himself as the type of director whose work can’t be replicated. The traits that make a Spike Lee Joint a Spike Lee Joint are easy to spot: the fiery and often political subject matter, the mix of humor with drama, those iconic floaty dolly shots, and an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach to stylistic experimentation.
Lee’s fearlessness as a director makes for a fascinating mixed-bag of a filmography. The auteur has at least three undeniable masterpieces under his belt: 1989’s “Do the Right Thing,” a searing drama about police violence and racism; 1992’s “Malcolm X,” an epic starring Denzel Washington as the titular Civil Rights leader; and 2002’s “25th Hour,” the greatest portrait of life in New York after 9/11 put to film. Depending on who you ask,...
Over four decades and 30 films, Brooklyn-raised Lee has established himself as the type of director whose work can’t be replicated. The traits that make a Spike Lee Joint a Spike Lee Joint are easy to spot: the fiery and often political subject matter, the mix of humor with drama, those iconic floaty dolly shots, and an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach to stylistic experimentation.
Lee’s fearlessness as a director makes for a fascinating mixed-bag of a filmography. The auteur has at least three undeniable masterpieces under his belt: 1989’s “Do the Right Thing,” a searing drama about police violence and racism; 1992’s “Malcolm X,” an epic starring Denzel Washington as the titular Civil Rights leader; and 2002’s “25th Hour,” the greatest portrait of life in New York after 9/11 put to film. Depending on who you ask,...
- 5/10/2023
- by Wilson Chapman
- Indiewire
Two-time Oscar winner Chloé Zhao does not want to be one of the few exceptions.
From Songs My Brothers Taught Me and The Rider to Nomadland and Eternals, Zhao knows how to make an impact onscreen, but now she’s determined to make a difference offscreen, so that the list of Oscar-winning female directors can someday become significantly longer than just her, Jane Campion and Kathryn Bigelow.
To get the ball rolling, Zhao has now teamed up with Johnnie Walker’s First Strides Initiative and Women in Film to celebrate female filmmakers and create further opportunities for women both in front of and behind the camera. To commemorate their partnership at the upcoming 16th Annual Women in Film Oscar Party, Johnnie Walker commissioned a custom red carpet with panels that pay tribute to other notable women directors including Gina Prince-Bythewood, Ana Lily Amirpour, Janicza Bravo, Christine Choy, Julie Dash, Wanuri Kahiu and Claire Denis.
From Songs My Brothers Taught Me and The Rider to Nomadland and Eternals, Zhao knows how to make an impact onscreen, but now she’s determined to make a difference offscreen, so that the list of Oscar-winning female directors can someday become significantly longer than just her, Jane Campion and Kathryn Bigelow.
To get the ball rolling, Zhao has now teamed up with Johnnie Walker’s First Strides Initiative and Women in Film to celebrate female filmmakers and create further opportunities for women both in front of and behind the camera. To commemorate their partnership at the upcoming 16th Annual Women in Film Oscar Party, Johnnie Walker commissioned a custom red carpet with panels that pay tribute to other notable women directors including Gina Prince-Bythewood, Ana Lily Amirpour, Janicza Bravo, Christine Choy, Julie Dash, Wanuri Kahiu and Claire Denis.
- 3/10/2023
- by Brian Davids
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
This weekend, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures is hosting the Regeneration Summit: A Celebration of Black Cinema in honor of their ongoing exhibition Regeneration: Black Cinema 1898–1971, which has been extended through July 16. The three-day festival, which runs Feb. 3-5, will feature live entertainment, workshops, panel discussions and screenings with guests including Julie Dash, Carla Hayden, Janaya Future Khan, Shola Lynch, Justice Maya Singleton and others.
“Our exhibition, Regeneration: Black Cinema 1898–1971, is like no other museum exhibition in that it celebrates Black participation in American cinema from the turn of the 19th century all the way through the Civil Rights Movement in the early 1970s,” Amy Homma, Chief Audience Officer of the Academy Museum, tells The Hollywood Reporter. “We want visitors to understand, celebrate and uplift this history. So what better way to do that than to complement the exhibition with a weekend-long festival?”
Stars and Icons, ‘Regeneration: Black...
“Our exhibition, Regeneration: Black Cinema 1898–1971, is like no other museum exhibition in that it celebrates Black participation in American cinema from the turn of the 19th century all the way through the Civil Rights Movement in the early 1970s,” Amy Homma, Chief Audience Officer of the Academy Museum, tells The Hollywood Reporter. “We want visitors to understand, celebrate and uplift this history. So what better way to do that than to complement the exhibition with a weekend-long festival?”
Stars and Icons, ‘Regeneration: Black...
- 2/3/2023
- by Evan Nicole Brown
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
“All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt” is an emblematic, almost impressionistic portrait of a young Black woman living in the rural south. Inspired by Julie Dash’s “Daughters of the Dust” and produced by Barry Jenkins, poet and photographer Raven Jackson’s feature-length directorial debut offers little in the way of dialogue or conventional narrative.
It is a distinctly unique motion picture, one unburdened by many of the trappings and guardrails present in most conventional narrative features. It was that freedom, and concurrent challenge, that was on the mind of its makers when writer/director Raven Jackson, alongside cast members Charleen McClure, Sheila Atim and Chris Chalk, stopped by TheWrap’s Portrait and Video Studio at The Music Lodge during the 2023 Sundance Film Festival for a conversation with Steve Pond.
Pond began the chat by inquiring about Jackson’s past tense triumphs as a poet and a photographer, asking if...
It is a distinctly unique motion picture, one unburdened by many of the trappings and guardrails present in most conventional narrative features. It was that freedom, and concurrent challenge, that was on the mind of its makers when writer/director Raven Jackson, alongside cast members Charleen McClure, Sheila Atim and Chris Chalk, stopped by TheWrap’s Portrait and Video Studio at The Music Lodge during the 2023 Sundance Film Festival for a conversation with Steve Pond.
Pond began the chat by inquiring about Jackson’s past tense triumphs as a poet and a photographer, asking if...
- 1/29/2023
- by Scott Mendelson
- The Wrap
Raven Jackson’s directorial debut All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt is a distillation of cinema to its purest form, a stunning patchwork of experience and memory. Daring in its formal gambits but universal for how it explores humanity’s connection with nature, loss, and love, it’s among few films in the history of Sundance that genuinely seems to advance the language and possibilities of cinema. With adoring notes of Terrence Malick, Andrei Tarkovsky, Carlos Reygadas, and Julie Dash, Jackson isn’t wholly reinventing what has come before, but rather pushing this poetic-based variety into thrilling new territories.
Freed from the shackles of linear storytelling, Jackson jumps around the life of Mack, a Black woman from Mississippi, as we witness glimpses of her childhood, teenage years, and beyond. We begin with her as a child (Kaylee Nicole Johnson) fishing with her father (Chris Chalk), though it’s many minutes...
Freed from the shackles of linear storytelling, Jackson jumps around the life of Mack, a Black woman from Mississippi, as we witness glimpses of her childhood, teenage years, and beyond. We begin with her as a child (Kaylee Nicole Johnson) fishing with her father (Chris Chalk), though it’s many minutes...
- 1/26/2023
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Mubi has announced its lineup of streaming offerings for next month, including Carla Simón’s Golden Bear winner Alcarràs, Ruth Beckermann’s Mutzenbacher, a series celebrating Black cinema with works from Charles Burnett, Julie Dash, Ephraim Asili, Bill Duke, and more.
Additional highlights include Sarah Polley’s Away From Her, Richard Linklater’s Before Midnight, Albert Brooks’ Modern Romance, Bong Joon Ho’s The Host, Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac, shorts by Emilija Škarnulytė, and the beginning of a series spotlighting Akio Jissoji’s Buddhist Trilogy.
Check out the lineup below and get 30 days free here.
February 1 – Softie, directed by Samuel Theis | From France with Love
February 2 – The Sleeping Negro, directed by Skinner Myers
February 3 – Before Midnight, directed by Richard Linklater
February 4 – To Sleep with Anger, directed by Charles Burnett
February 5 – Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, directed by Stanley Kramer | Performers We Love
February 6 – Aphotic Zone, directed by Emilija...
Additional highlights include Sarah Polley’s Away From Her, Richard Linklater’s Before Midnight, Albert Brooks’ Modern Romance, Bong Joon Ho’s The Host, Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac, shorts by Emilija Škarnulytė, and the beginning of a series spotlighting Akio Jissoji’s Buddhist Trilogy.
Check out the lineup below and get 30 days free here.
February 1 – Softie, directed by Samuel Theis | From France with Love
February 2 – The Sleeping Negro, directed by Skinner Myers
February 3 – Before Midnight, directed by Richard Linklater
February 4 – To Sleep with Anger, directed by Charles Burnett
February 5 – Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, directed by Stanley Kramer | Performers We Love
February 6 – Aphotic Zone, directed by Emilija...
- 1/19/2023
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
In a major shift one of the nation’s premier arthouses, Karen Cooper will be exiting as director on June 30 after 50 years running the Film Forum in New York City. Deputy Director Sonya Chung will assume the role.
Cooper has led the nonprofit cinema since its first iteration in 1972 as a 50-seat loft space on the Upper West Side open only weekends, to a multi-million dollar operation with four screens and 500 seats in lower Manhattan. She’ll remain an advisor to Chung with a focus on programming premieres and fundraising
“To say this is a transitional moment would be a vast understatement – for virtually all of its history, Film Forum has been energetically and most ably guided by Karen, not least during the very challenging pandemic period from which we are emerging. My board colleagues and I are extremely grateful for her tenure, and excited that in Sonya we have...
Cooper has led the nonprofit cinema since its first iteration in 1972 as a 50-seat loft space on the Upper West Side open only weekends, to a multi-million dollar operation with four screens and 500 seats in lower Manhattan. She’ll remain an advisor to Chung with a focus on programming premieres and fundraising
“To say this is a transitional moment would be a vast understatement – for virtually all of its history, Film Forum has been energetically and most ably guided by Karen, not least during the very challenging pandemic period from which we are emerging. My board colleagues and I are extremely grateful for her tenure, and excited that in Sonya we have...
- 1/9/2023
- by Jill Goldsmith
- Deadline Film + TV
Every 10 years, the British Film Institute's Sight and Sound magazine asks hundreds of film critics to name what they believe to be the 10 greatest movies of all time. From this, a master list of the 100 Greatest Films of All Time is compiled. Once released, there's a brief period of effusion followed by days of rage. How could "[insert masterpiece here]" rank below so many films that are clearly inferior, or, god forbid, miss the list entirely? For some, the final list is too esoteric while others find the list too beholden to tradition. Many correctly point out that there's historically been a decided caucasian male slant.
The BFI addressed this last complaint in 2022 by expanding its scope from 846 critics to 1,639. This broadening of perspectives has resulted in what is easily the most racially and ethnically diverse list in the poll's 70-year history. Films from Ousmane Sembène ("Black Girl"), Julie Dash ("Daughters of the...
The BFI addressed this last complaint in 2022 by expanding its scope from 846 critics to 1,639. This broadening of perspectives has resulted in what is easily the most racially and ethnically diverse list in the poll's 70-year history. Films from Ousmane Sembène ("Black Girl"), Julie Dash ("Daughters of the...
- 12/2/2022
- by Jeremy Smith
- Slash Film
I have been breathlessly awaiting the release of Sight and Sound's once-a-decade poll on the 100 greatest films of all time. Even though the makeup of the list has absolutely no bearing on my own feelings about the films I love, I am always curious to get a lay of the land and see what kind of filmgoing consensus is out there, especially in a corner of the film community that isn't constantly obsessed with superheroes and the box office. This only comes around every 10 years, so it's important for us to treasure this celebration of Hollywood classics, art-house favorites, and international landmarks.
In this new 2022 update of the poll, 25 of the films that appeared on the previous list in 2012 are completely gone. This isn't a case of 25 films released in the last 10 years — or, actually, 24 new films, as the 2012 list featured 101 titles due to a tie — joining the list since it was last published.
In this new 2022 update of the poll, 25 of the films that appeared on the previous list in 2012 are completely gone. This isn't a case of 25 films released in the last 10 years — or, actually, 24 new films, as the 2012 list featured 101 titles due to a tie — joining the list since it was last published.
- 12/2/2022
- by Mike Shutt
- Slash Film
It’s been less than 24 hours since the announcement of Sight and Sound’s greatest films of all-time polls. While we have a decade more of discourse, the first reactions were expectedly divisive when certain 21st-century films make the list and other venerated classics are dropped. As interesting as the top 100 is to discuss, we wanted to look a bit deeper to see how the reception of certain films shifted over the last decade, with a rundown of the films that were added and those removed.
As one can see below, about a quarter of the list switched up this time, with major showings for a number of women filmmakers—Agnès Varda, Chantal Akerman, Julie Dash, Jane Campion, Barbara Loden, Céline Sciamma, Maya Daren, and Věra Chytilová. Wong Kar-wai, Hayao Miyazaki, Charles Burnett, Spike Lee, Jordan Peele, Barry Jenkins, and Bong Joon-ho were also well-represented.
The films that were dropped...
As one can see below, about a quarter of the list switched up this time, with major showings for a number of women filmmakers—Agnès Varda, Chantal Akerman, Julie Dash, Jane Campion, Barbara Loden, Céline Sciamma, Maya Daren, and Věra Chytilová. Wong Kar-wai, Hayao Miyazaki, Charles Burnett, Spike Lee, Jordan Peele, Barry Jenkins, and Bong Joon-ho were also well-represented.
The films that were dropped...
- 12/2/2022
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Unfortunately, like pretty much all arts-based industries, filmmaking is a male-dominated industry. Think about the movies you've been told are core parts of the film canon -- "Citizen Kane," "Vertigo," "The Godfather" -- and so on and so forth. What do most of them have in common besides bringing significant and positive changes to the medium? They are directed by established men who had proven their talents time and time again. However, outside of a few exceptions, the so-called "film canon" rarely takes female directors and their work into account. While recent history has been more kind to these artists as women's work is increasingly championed across the industry, there are still staggeringly few movies directed by women that have been widely referred to as essential viewing.
However, according to the British Film Institute's Sight and Sound magazine, that might change. That's because their once-a-decade poll on the greatest movies...
However, according to the British Film Institute's Sight and Sound magazine, that might change. That's because their once-a-decade poll on the greatest movies...
- 12/2/2022
- by Erin Brady
- Slash Film
Every decade, the British Film Institute's Sight & Sound Magazine has asked film critics and directors to vote for what they believed were the greatest films of all time. The last time that the poll was held back in 2012, Alfred Hitchcock's "Vertigo" was given the prestigious title. However, a new best film ever has been crowned, and it might not be one you'd expect.
According to more than 1,600 film professionals, Chantal Akerman's "Jeanne Dielman 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles" is the greatest film of all time as of 2022. Just to put how unexpected this new placement is into perspective, the slice-of-life epic previously secured merely the 35th ranking, and that was the first time the film itself had even been on the final list. "Jeanne Dielman" becomes the fourth movie to top the Sight & Sound list, and it's in very prestigious company; not only does it share the distinction with "Vertigo,...
According to more than 1,600 film professionals, Chantal Akerman's "Jeanne Dielman 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles" is the greatest film of all time as of 2022. Just to put how unexpected this new placement is into perspective, the slice-of-life epic previously secured merely the 35th ranking, and that was the first time the film itself had even been on the final list. "Jeanne Dielman" becomes the fourth movie to top the Sight & Sound list, and it's in very prestigious company; not only does it share the distinction with "Vertigo,...
- 12/1/2022
- by Erin Brady
- Slash Film
Another decade, another Sight & Sound poll. On Thursday, the British magazine unveiled the 2022 edition of its long-running critics’ poll on the greatest films of all time, with “Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles” taking the top spot — the first film from a female director to achieve the honor since the poll began in 1952.
Directed by Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman and released in 1975, “Jeanne Dielman” is a three-hour, 20-minute film following the title character (Delphine Seyrig), a single mother and prostitute, as she carries out a monotonous daily routine that slowly breaks apart and collapses. Since its premiere, the film has been highly acclaimed as a landmark of feminist cinema. Previously, it ranked 36 on Sight & Sound’s 2012 edition of the poll, where it was one of only two films in the top 100 from a female filmmaker; the other, “Beau Travail” by Claire Denis, is now ranked at number seven.
In celebration...
Directed by Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman and released in 1975, “Jeanne Dielman” is a three-hour, 20-minute film following the title character (Delphine Seyrig), a single mother and prostitute, as she carries out a monotonous daily routine that slowly breaks apart and collapses. Since its premiere, the film has been highly acclaimed as a landmark of feminist cinema. Previously, it ranked 36 on Sight & Sound’s 2012 edition of the poll, where it was one of only two films in the top 100 from a female filmmaker; the other, “Beau Travail” by Claire Denis, is now ranked at number seven.
In celebration...
- 12/1/2022
- by Wilson Chapman and Christian Blauvelt
- Indiewire
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.Newsrrr.First: Notebook is launching a weekly email newsletter in 2023! Sign up here to keep up with our latest writing in this precarious digital age.At a recent screening of Rrr in Chicago, S.S. Rajamouli mentioned that his father and screenwriting partner V. Vijayendra Prasad is beginning to draft a sequel. In the meantime, Rajamouli is preparing an untitled film starring Mahesh Bubu, set to begin filming in the spring.In this Willamette Week article about George Saunders’s new short story collection Liberation Day, there is a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it mention of a film project. Richard Ayoade will direct an adaptation of Saunders’s 2012 short story “The Semplica-Girl Diaries,” set to begin filming next year. Though Ayoade stole the show in both parts of Joanna Hogg’s The Souvenir, this will be his...
- 11/16/2022
- MUBI
Nina Menkes’ bracing 1991 feature Queen of Diamonds is one of a group of notable films by female auteurs that have recently been restored and brought back into wider circulation. But rather than using the momentum as of yet to get another fictional film in production, Menkes has adapted a lecture presentation she began giving in 2018 entitled “Sex and Power: The Visual Language of Oppression” into Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power, the first solo-directed non-fiction work in her filmography.
Surveying how the male gaze, as theorized by Laura Mulvey in her pathbreaking essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” has influenced and hamstrung the medium across its history, Menkes has received some critical pushback for this film, including from those who were supportive of her more experimental fiction work, which is considered ahead-of-its-time and certainly would’ve received greater attention in today’s more egalitarian independent film climate. Yet the documentary still alights on an...
Surveying how the male gaze, as theorized by Laura Mulvey in her pathbreaking essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” has influenced and hamstrung the medium across its history, Menkes has received some critical pushback for this film, including from those who were supportive of her more experimental fiction work, which is considered ahead-of-its-time and certainly would’ve received greater attention in today’s more egalitarian independent film climate. Yet the documentary still alights on an...
- 10/25/2022
- by David Katz
- The Film Stage
Early in “Brainwashed,” filmmaker and cinema studies professor Nina Menkes quotes author James Baldwin when she says, “Nothing can be changed until it is fixed.” But before a broken system can be fixed, it first needs to be acknowledged. That’s Menkes’ job, and she does it so well that her lecture — which forms the basis of the movie — should be seen by everyone.
As a substitute for a Feminist Film Studies 101 class, “Brainwashed” gets the job done a lot more quickly and cheaply than if you registered for grad school. In sharing her academic talk, “Sex and Power: The Visual Language of Oppression,” Menkes gives us a base from which to understand the visual language of movies. She interviews seminal theorist Laura Mulvey, who popularized the concept of the “male gaze.” And she talks to a range of filmmakers, academics, and performers, who expand on what that concept has meant to them professionally.
As a substitute for a Feminist Film Studies 101 class, “Brainwashed” gets the job done a lot more quickly and cheaply than if you registered for grad school. In sharing her academic talk, “Sex and Power: The Visual Language of Oppression,” Menkes gives us a base from which to understand the visual language of movies. She interviews seminal theorist Laura Mulvey, who popularized the concept of the “male gaze.” And she talks to a range of filmmakers, academics, and performers, who expand on what that concept has meant to them professionally.
- 10/20/2022
- by Elizabeth Weitzman
- The Wrap
"If the camera is predatory, then the culture is predatory as well." Kino Lorber has unveiled the official trailer for a documentary film titled Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power, which originally premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival earlier this year. After playing at a festivals around the world, it's ready to open in theaters this October. The film investigates the politics of cinematic shot design, and how this meta-level of filmmaking intersects with the on-going twin epidemics of sexual abuse/assault and employment discrimination against women. It's a deep-dive into patriarchal power, and how it even seeps into every last shot in cinema. Featuring over 175 movie clips from 1896 to 2020. The film also features interviews with an all-star cast of women and non-binary industry professionals discussing all of this, including: Julie Dash, Penelope Spheeris, Charlyne Yi, Joey Soloway, Catherine Hardwicke, Eliza Hittman, Rosanna Arquette. The result is an electrifying call-to-action that will fundamentally change...
- 9/28/2022
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
Documentarian Nina Menkes is turning her camera on cinema history itself.
Menkes’ “Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power” centers on the cultural normalization of the exploitative male gaze found in cinema. Using clips from more than 175 films ranging from “Sleeping Beauty” to “Eyes Wide Shut” and “Spring Breakers,” Menkes deconstructs how the visual language of cinema is connected to “employment discrimination against women and an environment of pervasive sexual harassment, abuse, and assault.”
The film premieres October 21 via Kino Lorber at the new Dctv Firehouse Cinema in New York City and the Laemmle in Los Angeles, with a national rollout to follow.
Based on Menkes’ acclaimed talk “Sex & Power: The Visual Language of Cinema,” the film made its world premiere at 2022 Sundance. Award-winning documentarian Menkes argues that shot design is gendered, with “Brainwashed” seeking to illuminate the patriarchal narrative codes that hide within supposedly “classic” set-ups and camera angles, and demonstrates how women are...
Menkes’ “Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power” centers on the cultural normalization of the exploitative male gaze found in cinema. Using clips from more than 175 films ranging from “Sleeping Beauty” to “Eyes Wide Shut” and “Spring Breakers,” Menkes deconstructs how the visual language of cinema is connected to “employment discrimination against women and an environment of pervasive sexual harassment, abuse, and assault.”
The film premieres October 21 via Kino Lorber at the new Dctv Firehouse Cinema in New York City and the Laemmle in Los Angeles, with a national rollout to follow.
Based on Menkes’ acclaimed talk “Sex & Power: The Visual Language of Cinema,” the film made its world premiere at 2022 Sundance. Award-winning documentarian Menkes argues that shot design is gendered, with “Brainwashed” seeking to illuminate the patriarchal narrative codes that hide within supposedly “classic” set-ups and camera angles, and demonstrates how women are...
- 9/26/2022
- by Samantha Bergeson
- Indiewire
Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.
Aniara (Pella Kågerman & Hugo Lilja)
The title shares its name with a city-size spacecraft ferrying humans from Earth to Mars in barely three weeks. It’s a routine trip that’s never run into problems with many passengers already having family on the red planet to greet them upon arrival. But there’s a first time for everything as a small field of debris forces Captain Chefone (Arvin Kananian) off course. Unfortunately a screw breaches their hull anyway, pushing their nuclear fuel supply to critical mass. Expelling it may save them for the moment, but without it they cannot steer. So despite having enough self-sustaining electricity and algae (for air and food), there’s no way to return onto their necessary trajectory.
Aniara (Pella Kågerman & Hugo Lilja)
The title shares its name with a city-size spacecraft ferrying humans from Earth to Mars in barely three weeks. It’s a routine trip that’s never run into problems with many passengers already having family on the red planet to greet them upon arrival. But there’s a first time for everything as a small field of debris forces Captain Chefone (Arvin Kananian) off course. Unfortunately a screw breaches their hull anyway, pushing their nuclear fuel supply to critical mass. Expelling it may save them for the moment, but without it they cannot steer. So despite having enough self-sustaining electricity and algae (for air and food), there’s no way to return onto their necessary trajectory.
- 9/23/2022
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
“Great actors fall into darkness backwards,” Bill Duke likes to say, quoting an early teacher of his who suggested that the leap of faith required for someone to become the person they imagine in their mind requires a sense of self-belief powerful enough to overcome their fear of the unknown. Not only has Duke consistently done that over the course of the actor-director’s 40-plus-year career, he’s done it with an unparalleled degree of excellence and grace.
While cinephiles and casual fans alike may be familiar with Duke’s performances in films like “Predator” and “Menace II Society,” few recognize the full impact of his contributions behind the camera during the ’90s, when he hit his stride with a series of major and enduring work that range from “A Rage in Harlem” and the masterful neo-noir “Deep Cover” to the beloved crowdpleaser “Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit.
While cinephiles and casual fans alike may be familiar with Duke’s performances in films like “Predator” and “Menace II Society,” few recognize the full impact of his contributions behind the camera during the ’90s, when he hit his stride with a series of major and enduring work that range from “A Rage in Harlem” and the masterful neo-noir “Deep Cover” to the beloved crowdpleaser “Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit.
- 8/18/2022
- by Robert Daniels
- Indiewire
The Toronto International Film Festival announced its second big wave of programming for the 47th edition, a 54 feature title lineup across its Discovery, Midnight Madness and Wavelengths sections.
Twenty-six countries are represented in the three programs with the Discovery opening night film being Elegance Bratton’s The Inspection starring Jeremy Pope, Gabrielle Union, Bokeem Woodbine and Raul Castillo about the filmmaker’s life and time as a Marine Corp vet. Also booked in Discovery is the acquisition title Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe from Aitch Alberto starring Eva Longoria, Eugenio Derbez and Isabella Gomez.
Meanwhile, we hear that Golda, Bleecker Street’s movie with Helen Mirren as Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, and Nattiv directing, is delayed this year.
“TIFF’s Discovery programme is a showcase of cinema and talent from around the world — a place to unearth work that is bold, distinctive, and, above all,...
Twenty-six countries are represented in the three programs with the Discovery opening night film being Elegance Bratton’s The Inspection starring Jeremy Pope, Gabrielle Union, Bokeem Woodbine and Raul Castillo about the filmmaker’s life and time as a Marine Corp vet. Also booked in Discovery is the acquisition title Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe from Aitch Alberto starring Eva Longoria, Eugenio Derbez and Isabella Gomez.
Meanwhile, we hear that Golda, Bleecker Street’s movie with Helen Mirren as Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, and Nattiv directing, is delayed this year.
“TIFF’s Discovery programme is a showcase of cinema and talent from around the world — a place to unearth work that is bold, distinctive, and, above all,...
- 8/4/2022
- by Anthony D'Alessandro
- Deadline Film + TV
Like so many indie filmmakers of the late 20th century, Ayoka Chenzira is not as well-known as she should be, nor has she made as many films as her talent warrants. But the ones she’s made remain impactful.
Her short “Hair Piece: A Film for Nappyheaded People” is celebrated as a first from a Black woman animator, and its focus on Black hair remains as timely as ever. And now “Alma’s Rainbow,” her 1994 feature-film debut centered on Black womanhood, returns to US theaters in a new 4K restoration.
Written, directed and produced by Chenzira — who has gone on to guide a new generation of filmmakers and new-media creators at Spelman for more than 20 years — “Alma’s Rainbow” captures the dynamic between mother and daughter during a pivotal turning point in the younger woman’s life. Like Leslie Harris’s debut feature, 1992’ “Just Another Girl on the I.R.T.,” “Alma’s Rainbow” is...
Her short “Hair Piece: A Film for Nappyheaded People” is celebrated as a first from a Black woman animator, and its focus on Black hair remains as timely as ever. And now “Alma’s Rainbow,” her 1994 feature-film debut centered on Black womanhood, returns to US theaters in a new 4K restoration.
Written, directed and produced by Chenzira — who has gone on to guide a new generation of filmmakers and new-media creators at Spelman for more than 20 years — “Alma’s Rainbow” captures the dynamic between mother and daughter during a pivotal turning point in the younger woman’s life. Like Leslie Harris’s debut feature, 1992’ “Just Another Girl on the I.R.T.,” “Alma’s Rainbow” is...
- 7/28/2022
- by Ronda Racha Penrice
- The Wrap
Last Friday, to escape the New York heatwave, I decided to revisit The Costume Institute’s extensive two-part exhibition, In America: A Lexicon of Fashion and In America: An Anthology of Fashion, which turned the Met’s American Wing over to nine directors: Martin Scorsese, Tom Ford, Chloé Zhao, Radha Blank, Sofia Coppola, Janicza Bravo, Autumn de Wilde, Julie Dash, and Regina King. For the exhibition, curated by Andrew Bolton, the filmmakers conjured up scenes mainly inspired by American domestic lives and installed in The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s period rooms ranging in time between 1805 and the teens of the 20th century.
From George Washington’s brown wool broadcloth coat to a Shaker retiring room, to the Battle of Versailles fought in the air, to the gild of the Gilded Age, and on to a delightfully elegant funeral party in the Frank Lloyd Wright room, where...
From George Washington’s brown wool broadcloth coat to a Shaker retiring room, to the Battle of Versailles fought in the air, to the gild of the Gilded Age, and on to a delightfully elegant funeral party in the Frank Lloyd Wright room, where...
- 7/24/2022
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
“Alma’s Rainbow” made history in 1993 as one of the first 35mm American features to be directed, written, and produced by a Black woman. Director Ayoka Chenzira’s unsung gem about three women living in Brooklyn is now primed for rediscovery thanks to a 4K restoration from Kino Lorber and Milestone Films. IndieWire has the exclusive trailer for the re-release below.
The coming-of-age comedy explores the life of teenager Rainbow Gold (Victoria Gabrielle Platt), who is entering womanhood and navigating conversations and experiences around standards of beauty, self-image, and the rights Black women have over their bodies. Rainbow attends a strict parochial school, where she studies dance, and is just starting to become aware of boys. Meanwhile, she lives with her strait-laced mother Alma (Kim Weston-Moran), who runs a hair salon in the parlor of their home.
But when Alma’s free-spirited sister Ruby (Mizan Kirby) shows up from Paris after 10 years away,...
The coming-of-age comedy explores the life of teenager Rainbow Gold (Victoria Gabrielle Platt), who is entering womanhood and navigating conversations and experiences around standards of beauty, self-image, and the rights Black women have over their bodies. Rainbow attends a strict parochial school, where she studies dance, and is just starting to become aware of boys. Meanwhile, she lives with her strait-laced mother Alma (Kim Weston-Moran), who runs a hair salon in the parlor of their home.
But when Alma’s free-spirited sister Ruby (Mizan Kirby) shows up from Paris after 10 years away,...
- 7/13/2022
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Indiewire
While much of the world only discovered the holiday of Juneteenth in 2020 amid the racial uprisings following the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, “Freedom Day” has long been a staple in the Black American community, specifically in the South. While slavery in America was officially outlawed when President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation became official on January 1, 1863, it wasn’t until two-and-a-half years later that the last of the enslaved finally learned of their liberation.
The date June 19 commemorates the anniversary of the Union Army’s arrival in Galveston, Texas in 1865, when Union Army general Gordon Granger shared the long-announced news that all slaves were now free. The day was recognized as a federal holiday on June 17, 2021, when President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law.
Black freedom has been hard-won and an uphill battle in all aspects of society, including the entertainment industry.
The date June 19 commemorates the anniversary of the Union Army’s arrival in Galveston, Texas in 1865, when Union Army general Gordon Granger shared the long-announced news that all slaves were now free. The day was recognized as a federal holiday on June 17, 2021, when President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law.
Black freedom has been hard-won and an uphill battle in all aspects of society, including the entertainment industry.
- 6/17/2022
- by Aramide A Tinubu
- Indiewire
Click here to read the full article.
Playing Tina Turner was an “unbelievably difficult, exciting and exhilarating” experience, says Adrienne Warren, who was in the midst of a Broadway run in the starring role of Tina: The Tina Turner Musical when everything came to a halt in March 2020. “Our entire community was in deep mourning,” Warren recalls, not knowing when or if they’d be back onstage.
Amid the uncertainty of that summer came the opportunity to portray Mamie Till-Mobley in the ABC anthology series Women of the Movement. Mamie, an educator and activist, was the mother of Emmett Till, whose lynching in 1955 was a catalyst in the civil rights movement. When the project came to Warren with her name on the shortlist, outrage over anti-Black racism was again roiling the country after the murder of George Floyd.
“There’s a reason why in my life, at this time, I...
Playing Tina Turner was an “unbelievably difficult, exciting and exhilarating” experience, says Adrienne Warren, who was in the midst of a Broadway run in the starring role of Tina: The Tina Turner Musical when everything came to a halt in March 2020. “Our entire community was in deep mourning,” Warren recalls, not knowing when or if they’d be back onstage.
Amid the uncertainty of that summer came the opportunity to portray Mamie Till-Mobley in the ABC anthology series Women of the Movement. Mamie, an educator and activist, was the mother of Emmett Till, whose lynching in 1955 was a catalyst in the civil rights movement. When the project came to Warren with her name on the shortlist, outrage over anti-Black racism was again roiling the country after the murder of George Floyd.
“There’s a reason why in my life, at this time, I...
- 6/6/2022
- by Naveen Kumar
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
The documentary, which premiered at Sundance, has also scored international deals.
Kino Lorber has acquired North American distribution rights to Nina Menkes documentary Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power and is teaming with library streaming platform Kanopy to release the film.
Billed as an “interrogation of the male gaze in cinema,” Brainwashed will be released theatrically in the US and Canada this autumn, with an educational streaming launch exclusively on Kanopy to follow.
Cinephil is handling international sales at the Cannes Marche and has secured deals for UK/Ireland with the BFI, for the Nordics and Baltics with Non Stop Entertainment, for Poland with New Horizons,...
Kino Lorber has acquired North American distribution rights to Nina Menkes documentary Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power and is teaming with library streaming platform Kanopy to release the film.
Billed as an “interrogation of the male gaze in cinema,” Brainwashed will be released theatrically in the US and Canada this autumn, with an educational streaming launch exclusively on Kanopy to follow.
Cinephil is handling international sales at the Cannes Marche and has secured deals for UK/Ireland with the BFI, for the Nordics and Baltics with Non Stop Entertainment, for Poland with New Horizons,...
- 5/19/2022
- by John Hazelton
- ScreenDaily
The 2022 Met Gala returns to its traditional spot on the first Monday of May, and this year the hosts and co-chairs will reflect the strong Hollywood theme: Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively, Regina King and Lin-Manuel Miranda have been named to the posts.
The gala, set for May 2, a primary source of income for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, follows last September’s scaled-back, pandemic-restricted “mini-gala” that launched the Met’s two-part exhibition “In America: An Anthology of Fashion.”
The exhibit will include “cinematic vignettes” exploring the roots of American fashion and designed by film directors King, Sofia Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Chloé Zhao, Tom Ford, Janicza Bravo, Julie Dash and Autumn de Wilde.
Ford, Adam Mosseri and Anna Wintour will continue their roles as honorary co-chairs for May event.
The “In America: An Anthology of Fashion” exhibit will open to the public on May 7.
The gala, set for May 2, a primary source of income for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, follows last September’s scaled-back, pandemic-restricted “mini-gala” that launched the Met’s two-part exhibition “In America: An Anthology of Fashion.”
The exhibit will include “cinematic vignettes” exploring the roots of American fashion and designed by film directors King, Sofia Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Chloé Zhao, Tom Ford, Janicza Bravo, Julie Dash and Autumn de Wilde.
Ford, Adam Mosseri and Anna Wintour will continue their roles as honorary co-chairs for May event.
The “In America: An Anthology of Fashion” exhibit will open to the public on May 7.
- 3/17/2022
- by Greg Evans
- Deadline Film + TV
To celebrate Black history month, Ava DuVernay’s indie distribution, arts and advocacy collective Array has produced “28 Days of ‘Sankofa,'” an event series where select cinemas, universities and festival locations throughout the U.S. are screening Ethiopian director Haile Gerima’s “Sankofa” for free, one screening for each day of February. In addition, Array created a free learning companion designed to help viewers process the weight of what they’re watching.
Gerima is best known as one of the leading members of the L.A. Rebellion, which was a movement of artists who studied film at UCLA from the late 1960s to early 1980s. Along with figures like Julie Dash and Charles Burnett, Gerima made a name for himself with movies that provided a Black alternative to the style of classical Hollywood. “Sankofa,” which was nominated for the coveted Golden Bear award at the Berlin International Film Festival in...
Gerima is best known as one of the leading members of the L.A. Rebellion, which was a movement of artists who studied film at UCLA from the late 1960s to early 1980s. Along with figures like Julie Dash and Charles Burnett, Gerima made a name for himself with movies that provided a Black alternative to the style of classical Hollywood. “Sankofa,” which was nominated for the coveted Golden Bear award at the Berlin International Film Festival in...
- 2/18/2022
- by Selome Hailu
- Variety Film + TV
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSAbove: Danny DeVito, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Ivan Reitman. (Via Arnold Schwarzenegger.) The prolific director and producer Ivan Reitman has died. Though best known for films like National Lampoon's Animal House, Kindergarten Cop, and the original Ghostbusters, Reitman started out by producing two early horror films by David Cronenberg: Shivers and Rapid. Though he mostly produced and directed comedies, in his later career he produced more dramatic films like Hitchcock and his son Jason Reitman's Up in the Air. His final directorial effort was 2014's Draft Day, a sports drama about the NFL. Reitman was known to take the genre of comedy very seriously, stating in 2000: "The great cliché is about how damn tough comedy is. But of course, nobody really gives that any respect." Michael Mann's film Ferrari has finally started its engine.
- 2/16/2022
- MUBI
As the Met Gala sets its return to the first Monday in May, the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art has announced plans for the 2022 spring exhibition themed “In America: An Anthology of Fashion.”
The Met curators, led by Andrew Bolton, the Wendy Yu curator in charge of the Costume Institute, have enlisted eight film directors —- Janicza Bravo, Sofia Coppola, Julie Dash, Tom Ford, Regina King, Martin Scorsese, Autumn de Wilde and Chloé Zhao — to help bring the exhibition to life.
“Anthology” is the second of a two-part presentation saluting designers and dressmakers who worked in the United States from the 19th to the mid-late 20th century. It follows Part One, titled “In America: A Lexicon of Fashion,” which opened in September 2021.
“Part Two, which explores the foundations of American fashion in relation to the complex histories of the American Wing period rooms, serves as a preface...
The Met curators, led by Andrew Bolton, the Wendy Yu curator in charge of the Costume Institute, have enlisted eight film directors —- Janicza Bravo, Sofia Coppola, Julie Dash, Tom Ford, Regina King, Martin Scorsese, Autumn de Wilde and Chloé Zhao — to help bring the exhibition to life.
“Anthology” is the second of a two-part presentation saluting designers and dressmakers who worked in the United States from the 19th to the mid-late 20th century. It follows Part One, titled “In America: A Lexicon of Fashion,” which opened in September 2021.
“Part Two, which explores the foundations of American fashion in relation to the complex histories of the American Wing period rooms, serves as a preface...
- 2/16/2022
- by Angelique Jackson
- Variety Film + TV
Though the different eras of global feminist thought are known as “waves,” which implies successive awakenings of liberation and critique, the film world takes an inordinately long time to develop alongside it. Amidst the social upheavals of the ‘60s, where previously “permissive” sexual content was finally allowed to be seen in mainstream cinema, the industry arguably became even more sexist, lecherous, and restrictive around female subjects.
There’s also a more subtle way to see the pervasive sexism of film culture: through documentaries, and broadcast TV on film criticism and history. While a titan like Pauline Kael could flourish on public radio (leading to her influential reign at the New Yorker), from Siskel & Ebert, to Scorsese’s Journey Through American Movies and onto the video-essay era, it is a sausage fest. Faint as it may seem, it makes a difference when an authoritative-seeming, patriarchal figure is alone on that pedestal,...
There’s also a more subtle way to see the pervasive sexism of film culture: through documentaries, and broadcast TV on film criticism and history. While a titan like Pauline Kael could flourish on public radio (leading to her influential reign at the New Yorker), from Siskel & Ebert, to Scorsese’s Journey Through American Movies and onto the video-essay era, it is a sausage fest. Faint as it may seem, it makes a difference when an authoritative-seeming, patriarchal figure is alone on that pedestal,...
- 1/22/2022
- by David Katz
- The Film Stage
The further history gets from us, the easier it becomes to dismiss it as some far-flung past when, in fact, it remains all too relevant to our present. “Women of the Movement,” premiering Jan. 6 on ABC, directly aims to rectify that, putting a sharp focus on a story that, for too many, keeps fading into distant memory. Developed as an anthology series to highlight a different piece of American history every season, “Women of the Movement” first follows Mamie Till-Mobley, whose 14 year-old son Emmett became a national flashpoint upon his brutal murder in 1955. After his death, Till-Mobley became a prominent civil rights figure in her own right both by terrible accident and grim design. The image of a grieving Black mother put a powerful face to a type of crime that had gone unremarked upon for decades — and yet, it’s impossible to watch “Women of the Movement” and not...
- 1/6/2022
- by Caroline Framke
- Variety Film + TV
This month, ABC is betting big that viewers will tune into its ambitious three-part, six-episode limited series “Women of the Movement,” centering on 14-year-old Emmett Till’s brutal murder in 1955 that served as an important catalyst for the civil rights movement. With the ongoing investigation into the Capitol riot and reignited Critical Race Theory debates in the wake of Nikole Hannah-Jones’ “The 1619 Project,” the nation’s “wokeness” meter has arguably never been higher. But the question is whether a traditional broadcast network can succeed on a project first developed at HBO.
Consciously focusing on the role Black women played in the civil rights struggle, “Women of the Movement” centers on Till’s grieving mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, and her determination to bring her son’s mutilated body back to Chicago to “let the world see” (a phrase that inspires the title of ABC’s companion docuseries). We also follow the trial...
Consciously focusing on the role Black women played in the civil rights struggle, “Women of the Movement” centers on Till’s grieving mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, and her determination to bring her son’s mutilated body back to Chicago to “let the world see” (a phrase that inspires the title of ABC’s companion docuseries). We also follow the trial...
- 1/5/2022
- by Ronda Racha Penrice
- The Wrap
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSAbove: Drive My Car (2021)List-making season has fully started. Film Comment released both the top twenty films as well as the top twenty undistributed films of the year, and IndieWire published the results of a massive poll of 187 critics. Vulture's critics have each written about their top tens, and Drive My Car tops both Barack Obama and Screen Slate's annual list. Screen Slate has also included individual ballots from "contributors, friends, critics, and filmmakers," which gave Paul Schrader the opportunity to rank The Card Counter as his pick for the best film of the year. Due to a nationwide lockdown in the Netherlands, the International Film Festival Rotterdam will be taking place online, cancelling its previous plans for an in-person event. There are two weeks left to submit to the Sundance Film Festival's 2022 Native Lab,...
- 12/22/2021
- MUBI
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSAbove: Lina Wertmüller in Behind the White Glasses (2015).Italian filmmaker Lina Wertmüller, the first woman to be nominated for a directing Oscar (for 1975's Seven Beauties), died on December 9. After working as an assistant director for Federico Fellini on 8 1/2, Wertmüller went on to become a prolific and distinctive filmmaker in her own right, combining politics and sex and humor in films like The Seduction of Mimi and Swept Away. In an interview with Criterion, she stated: "I consider myself a director, not a female director. I think there’s no difference. The difference is between good movies and bad movies. We should not make other distinctions." The prolific critic and theorist bell hooks has died today. In addition to her many writings on the feminist movement and cultural politics, hooks was also an important media theorist.
- 12/15/2021
- MUBI
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