The Liberator Magazine | Blog

Nijla Mu'min's "Deluge" / Magical Realism, post-BP oil spill New Orleans, and Black Mermaids

2012-05-21T05:03:00.000-04:00

{liberatormagazine.com exclusive feature}

Nijla Baseema Mu’min is a writer and filmmaker from the San Francisco Bay Area. A 2007 graduate of UC Berkeley, she is now pursuing a dual MFA degree in Film Directing and Writing at Calarts. I've been following Nijla’s work from quite some time, more specifically her recent work -- from her short film Two Bodies, which has screened at festivals across the country, including the 20th Annual Pan African Film Festival, the Fusion: LA LGBT People of Color Film Festival to her essay which is included in the The New York Times-featured book, Love InshAllah: The Secret Love Lives of American Muslim Women. Her newest film Deluge involves Drexciyan-like underwater worlds and archetypes. As Nijla describes:

/////
Deluge is a short film that explores African American’s relationships to water, informed by such traumas as The Middle Passage, the BP Oil spill, and Hurricane Katrina, through the lens of main character Tiana, and her introduction to an aquatic underworld. After witnessing the mass drowning of her friends and struggling with the decision not to jump in, 14-year old Tiana must decide if she will join the order of black mermaids that protect the oil-drenched waters of Lake Pontchartrain where her friends rest. This film is inspired by the 2010 mass drowning of six black teens in a Shreveport, Louisiana sinkhole. None of them could swim. The film blends coming of age drama, magical realism, and psychological suspense to explore traumatic memory in a post- BP oil spill New Orleans.
/////

A crowd-sourced fundraising effort currently underway ends Thursday, June 14. We reached out to Nijla to learn more about the inspiration behind Deluge.

LM: The premise of Deluge delicately integrates themes such as environmental racism, spiritual relationships with water, Yoruba mythology, and the vulgarities of slavery. When sitting down to write this film, what did your research process look like? And I know you traveled to New Orleans for location scouting. How did being in that space help you develop this story?

Since I was young, I’ve been fascinated with black history and people. My artistic practice is largely informed by continued research and exploration. I like to think this film is an extension of life passions that took root then. This film began as a poem I wrote in the wake of the BP Oil Spill. I was overcome with thoughts of water lineage and oil trauma, and what that meant for an order of black mermaids who I imagined as guardians of the ocean since the Middle Passage. Around this same time, I read M. Nourbese Philip’s book, Zong!, a poetic recapturing of the court decision regarding the Zong Slave ship where a captain decided to murder 150 Africans by drowning in order to collect insurance money. I also read Salt Water Slavery by Stephanie Smallwood, and was struck by a chapter detailing the many ways that captured Africans died on slave ships. There was a sense of agency in some of these deaths, be it throwing one’s self overboard, or the example of a man who purposely laid out on the top layer of a boat while it rained, and died there. And there were also murders- human beings used as bait for sharks and thrown into the water against their will, only to drown.

When I transitioned from the poem into the screenplay, the story was a complete underwater narrative, complete with black mermaids and ancestral sea cemeteries. As I began to think of the project as a potential thesis film, I knew I wouldn’t be able to capture the full extent of that world in the time and budget I had as a graduate student. I had to figure out how to marry the above-ground story with the aquatic presence of the original idea.

It may sound crazy, but the present structure for the film came to me in a dream. The dream revealed that there was a way to merge the story of the drowning and the black mermaids in a way that conveyed the depth and texture of both, and within a thesis film framework.

Filmmaker Haile Gerima always talks of one’s dreams being the language of cinema. In this case, it was. I woke up, went to my laptop, and wrote the treatment for what would become Deluge.

During my trip location scouting, I was further convinced that this film couldn’t come alive in any other location than Louisiana, and New Orleans specifically. This is a landmass that is so very dependent and linked to water, with areas below sea level. There’s water and moisture all around, the energy is wet, and I felt it all wash over me while there. The Gulf is also an important anchor for the mermaids in the film.

I also wanted to play with themes of oil and its presence in the lives of people- to fry food, to use in our hair, to fix cars, to wage wars. Oil takes on so many meanings and I wanted to explore subtle associations between oil, toxins, teen sexuality, and water. Water as a metaphor for youth and life and, what happens when relationships to water are compromised by oil, industrial residue, and pollution.

LM: This film was inspired by the mass drowning of six black teens in a Shreveport, Louisiana sinkhole. I vividly remember this story as it was linked to my fears of being unable to swim. I remember the story quickly disappearing from the public discourse. Can you talk a bit more why this story needs further exploration and deconstruction?

When I heard about the story of these teens, I kept thinking about what their day was like leading up to the drowning; what they ate for breakfast, what their parents told them that morning, what their conversations were on the way to the Red River. I wondered if they had crushes and if they’d spoken with them that day. I also thought about the surviving teen and how he’d navigate life after such trauma. What would be his relationship to water in the aftermath of this? How would it inform their life? These are all questions and thoughts that overwhelmed me. They wouldn’t let go of me. In that space, I began to build scenes, moments, and characters that would become part of the film.

I don’t consider myself to be the authority of black people’s relationships with water, or even the example of water literacy. I actually taught myself to swim as a kid and have encountered bouts of insecurities about my own competence as a swimmer. This film isn’t a PSA on learning to swim or even an advisory of what happens if you don’t. In so many ways, Deluge is my own personal investigation of water.

I believe the most powerful films start as personal dialogues between a filmmaker and their subject, and then expand into something larger and layered. That is my aim with Deluge.

There are no easy answers or solutions to statistics that black children are three times more likely to drown than white children. There have been, and there are systemic barriers to water access and training. There are toxins and pollutants in many natural bodies of water around urban neighborhoods and communities. There is fear of water, there are insecurities around our hair getting “messed up” after we swim. There is water that isn’t safe to drink or shower in. There was a city that went underwater before the government cared to respond.

Some pools were doused with bleach and acid when black people tried to swim in them. There are so many multi-layered conversations to be had around black Americans and water, and how we can start to collectively reclaim and embrace water. The Shreveport drowning initiated my own conversation with these issues, and I’m hoping that Deluge continues it.

LM: You wrote that the film blends elements from a poem you wrote about black mermaids born from the souls of Africans who jumped, or were thrown overboard slave ships during the Middle Passage. Can you share an excerpt of that poem with us? I am curious about this notion of the Black mermaid and how it reminds me of the story of the flying Igbo.

Yes, I’ve included two stanzas of the poem below. The full, signed, framed poem is available to contributors who donate $25 or more to our Indiegogo campaign.

We sing saline
prayers
with locs of sea weed
and kiss the bones of babies
once dropped
kiss the bones of black men
and women who jumped overboard,
screaming us into the waters-
sea creatures,
surviving unlike them

LM: I glanced at your tumblr, aptly titled “Water Notes” and noticed a few images -- particularly an animated gif of THEESatisfaction's video for "QueenS" tagged as "mermaids". What is a Black mermaid?

A large part of Deluge is the creation of the black mermaid ethos. I think there’s a common, accepted Western conception of mermaids that positions them as mostly sexual creatures that lure people, (mostly men) into questionable circumstances. In my imagining of the black mermaids, I referred to Yoruba mythology, which shifts that western idea of sea beings into a more holistic, universal existence. Black mermaids emerge here as descendants of enslaved Africans and specific types of fish- bettafish, neon tetra, just to name a few. They possess a command of their bodies and some of them are sensual, but not for the sole purpose of male consumption.

I began a surrealist text/companion piece that details the origins of the black mermaids and their present endangerment in the midst of the Oil spill. That text, in addition to the poem, and several drafts of the script, portray black mermaids as distinct characters with different personalities, lives, and conflicts. On my tumblr, I frequently tag images “black mermaids” that inform my idea of these characters. In that particular gif, I am excited and moved by a collective group of black women moving to their own beat but also preserving something together, in that case music. My mermaids preserve spirits and memory in the water, though they may swim in different directions.

LM: Your past work while non-traditional in theme, exist in a more realist genre. In Deluge you are pushing the boundaries of magical realism and Afrofuturism. Why must this story be told through this lens?

My films often address themes of duality in black women and girls, or a certain twoness of being in multiple worlds while in one body. I’m also interested in personal versus public perceptions of self. Whether it’s duality of identity, religion, culture, sexuality, or race, I find the textures of these struggles compelling in the film form.

I’m also interested in subverting people’s ideas of what a “political” film or medium is. While my films may be tagged political, they are actually very personal stories about people undergoing some type of conflict, and often universal in their themes.

Deluge, while venturing into a more magical realm, centers on a character who is also between two worlds- her New Orleans family, friends, and community pre-drowning, and one of water trauma and black mermaids post-drowning. She is a precocious, intelligent girl who comes of age during this experience.

LM: You will be working with Charles Burnett, the director of Killer of Sheep (1977) and To Sleep with Anger (1990). Why did you choose this director as your faculty adviser?

This semester, I took a class with Charles called Advanced Staging. Under his guidance, students stage scenes from their scripts or existing films in class. This was one of the most beneficial classes I’ve taken as a filmmaker and student. As reflected in his films, specifically Killer of Sheep and To Sleep With Anger, Charles is the “master” of the moving master shot. There is something innate and instinctual inside of him that makes it all seem so easy. In class, he offers insight into how the camera can move with characters, flowing in and out of space as fluid as the mood evoked in the scene itself. This type of instruction is invaluable and I’m grateful to have it as I conceive of the visual design for Deluge. This is a film about water, about fluidity, but also about the roaring tide of trauma, and above all else, this will be a film that moves. Burnett’s films get at the core of family, of loss, and of history in a way that makes me want to step into them and dance alongside them. His insight on our project is invaluable in more ways than one can imagine.

LM: One aspect of this film that immediately caught my attention was your collaboration with conceptual artist Kenyatta AC Hinkle. Why did you chose to work so closely with a conceptual artist?

Kenyatta is a visual artist and writer who also attends Calarts. Her work extends across mediums and borders into explorations of lineage, personal geography, the power of naming, and black hair. We’re honored to work with her. It was extremely important for me to capture the image of the black mermaid characters early on so we’d be able to communicate our vision to potential costumers, art department, and film personnel, as well as to brand ourselves with an image the represents this stage of the project. The mermaid logo for our campaign contains the image that Hinkle designed. That is the “Merma” character in the script, and that image will be part of the poster rewards that contributors receive.

LM: Creatives are constantly fundraising for their projects. What makes Deluge especially important to support? What sets this narrative apart from other narratives?

You know, I’m always careful about presenting my work as “the first film that...” or in a way that brings down others.

Ultimately, this is a story that won’t leave me alone. It’s a story and film that keeps me up way into the night obsessing and worrying about whether everything will come together in time to make it. It’s story that has enveloped my being and probably will until it’s picture-locked.

I hope that dedication, that passion, the dozens of script rewrites, and determination translates into the project that people are reading about and thinking about as they browse our Indiegogo campaign. I want people to want to become submerged in this narrative.

LM: With all the excitement around this film, what aspects of the film are your nervous about?

Filmmaking is the ultimate test of nervousness but that usually means you’re passionate and will put that nervousness to the test. At this stage, I really have to trust my nervousness as a sign that all the hard work we’ve put in thus far will result in a project that accomplishes what we set out to do. For the past six months, I’ve lived in this elevated state of emotion, frustration, and excitement. I don’t think it will soon end. The test is to preserve my mind and body as the countdown continues.

LM: As a filmmaker, whose work -- film, literature, music, etc. inspires your work?

Oh my, so many people.

Right now I’m thinking of Alejandro González Iñárritu’s work- Amores Perros and Biutiful. He has a compelling way of layering stories and emotion into a cohesive narrative and the impact is always so visceral and earned.

I’m also thinking a lot about Haile Gerima and my experience taking his Third World Cinema class at Howard University. I don’t think I’d be the storyteller I am now without his insight.

I’m also thinking about Martha Southgate’s most recent novel, The Taste of Salt. I finished it in one night and stayed up thinking about it for hours. It’s a cross-generational exploration of one black woman’s relationship with water and the ocean, reflected in her family’s alcoholism, and her career as a marine biologist. This book serves as one of the main reference texts for Deluge.

I could go on and on but I have to say that I’m really moved by people. The people moving through world daily, and trying to figure out which way to go. I make movies that reflect them. I make movies for them.

An Encomium for Melvin Van Peebles' "Lilly Done the Zampoughi Everytime I Pulled Her Coattail"

2012-05-14T05:00:00.000-04:00

{liberatormagazine.com exclusive feature}

Vinyl Check '69 / An Encomium for Melvin Van Peebles' "Lilly Done the Zampoughi Everytime I Pulled Her Coattail"
by Nia I'man Smith

1
blue black woman
mouth a rounded story
when back is tight arched against wooden skyline
legs: spontaneous combustion of skin
singed muscle curved and lined
summoned under composed sheets of night
men call her name like it's their last memory of sound.

This is how I imagine you. Part Earl 'Snake Hips' swivel and satin. Part Sandra sequined and shakin'. The reasons why Nina and Screamin' Jay continued to cast ol' backwood swamp spells and women perfume all the quiet spaces of themselves-the backs of knees, behind earlobes, and the nape of one's neck with honey. The Zampoughi. As elusive as the true origins of your name, I have spent half a lifetime searching for you in crowded, damp red rooms. In between clunks of ice against plastic, the swallowing of fire, and the dizziness after, I have hoped that somehow, after years of patiently waiting and forever praying, one evening you would magically appear and answer the question that houses itself in the everyday of my thoughts: “How do you get somebody to love you?”

2
Cocksure in his stroke
He play God when he's straddled
Say: her dance was me

The bravado of a good fuck/ for a woman who loves to ball/ claim when he pull her coattail/ she come/ running/everytime/ oven or country style/ she likes it raunchy and wild/leave the money next to the Bible on the nightstand/ turn the lights off now/ he say: I make her sweat/ make her scratch and scream/ middle of the night/ 2 o'clock in the morning/ pouring down rain/got Lily dancing the Zampoughi only for me

Like the men before
He play God when he's straddled
Say: her dance was me

These are the men who will claim to have known you. In smoke-filled rooms of oak and whiskey, they will speak of you only in reference to themselves. They will talk of you in pieces:

“That girl always laughed when I...”
“Betchu' ain't never make her smile like I made her smile when I...”
“You know that gal loved it when I...”
They will talk of you as if laughter, smiling, and loving never graced your path until the night the two of you met. They will speak of you in the shards they collectively piece together to see the greatness of themselves. Time and time again, I've wanted to ask you the same question I've asked myself, “Why these men?”

You/me/we answer:

It's not
that I've loved them
more than I love myself
it's the burning desire
to be someone's
martyr.

3
I ain't
made to be owned.
I am no quiet space
for men to hold their thoughts.
this dance
bawdy juke'd laughter and moons shined
ain't for the claiming of
nobody’s dreams
but mine.

On the nights I wish to be enveloped by more than the weight of a pillow or have skin, rather than sheets, whisper against bare legs, I comfort myself by remembering the true nature of you. It is one that cuts through tobacco fields to drive men like Melvin into a crescendo of howls and pleads. It is one that openly scoffs at the idea of having a last name other than your own and prefacing your first with Mrs. It is the type of power ordinary women secretly ache for. The power that comes with being able to answer Pecola's question, but never feeling compelled to ask it.

*Italicized lines taken from the Melvin Van Peebles song, “Lilly Done the Zampoughi Everytime I Pulled Her Coattail” from the classic 1969 album, Brer Soul.

NY / Lounge Around at Zion, Saturday

2012-05-01T05:00:00.003-04:00

NY / Lounge Around at Zion

2012-04-26T12:00:00.001-04:00

The Cats of Mirikitani {film}

2012-04-01T04:00:00.000-04:00

Info: "Eighty year old Japanese-American painter, Jimmy Mirikitani, lives on the streets of New York near the World Trade Center, when 9/11 devastates the neighborhood. Befriended by filmmaker Linda Hattendorf, she persuades Jimmy to move in with her, while seeking a permanent home for him. This incredibly moving, ultimately affirming documentary delves into the California-born, Japan-raised artist's unique life which developed his resilient personality, and fuel his two main subjects; cats and internment camps. It weaves its poetic way through the fall-out of war, racism, poverty, homelessness, citizenship, betrayal, family & society, and art's facility for providing sustenance to the embattled spirit."

Miriam Makeba: Ode to Mama Africa in the hour of the wolf {film}

2012-03-16T04:30:00.000-04:00

Info: "Miriam Makeba was born in a South African township, broke through as a jazz singer and grew under the wing of Harry Belafonte into a musical and political legend. Makeba was an impressive sight and took public never mince words: "I do not talk politics, I say the truth." In 1963 she spoke to the United Nations and became a figurehead of the anti-apartheid struggle in her country. It earned her the nickname Mama Africa and led to thirty years in exile. Makeba married five times, lost her only daughter and lived in the U.S., Guinea and Belgium. She was in high cultural and political circles and was itself surrounded by people like Ella Fitzgerald, Marlon Brando and John F Kennedy. Her most famous hit Pata wasPata. The light made her sad that the very apolitical dance song was so successful, but they are not complaining about "the audience chooses what it wants." In 1990 Nelson Mandela asked her personally 'come home' and return to South Africa. She died in 2008 of a heart attack. This richly documented ode celebrates her unforgettable voice, her charisma and her highly paid idealism."

via Africa Is A Country

"Eyes On The Rainbow" / The Assata Shakur Documentary {film}

2012-03-16T04:00:00.000-04:00

Info: "Eyes on the Rainbow" deals with the life of Assata Shakur, the Black Panther and Black Liberation Army leader who escaped from prison and was given political asylum in Cuba, where she has lived for close to 15 years. In it we visit with Assata in Havana and she tells us about her history and her life in Cuba. This film is also about Assata's AfroCuban context, including the Yoruba Orisha Oya, goddess of the ancestors, of war, of the cemetery and of the rainbow. Gloria Rolando on "Eyes of the Rainbow": "In the struggle of the African American people, many women's voices in the past and the present have always called for social justice, women who throughout the years have shown integrity and firmness in their principles. For this reason, "The Eyes of the Rainbow" is dedicated to all women who struggle for a better world. One of those voices that already forms a part of the history of the African American people is that of Assata Shakur. In the documentary "The Eyes of the Rainbow," she recounts aspects of her path as relentless warrior. We are able to create a meeting with Assata Shakur through the symbols of AfroCuban culture, which offer us beautiful songs evoking the ancestors. Representations of the Yoruba warrior orishas such as Oya and Ochosi support the discourse of this story, which also has its moments of poetry and tenderness as in the dance of Oshun, through which is illustrated Assata's decision to become mother while still in prison. The blues interpreted by Junius Williams and his "Magic Harp," the songs of Sweet Honey in the Rocks, and the Cuban group "Vocal Baobab" give a special stamp to this valiant testimony which defines the spirit of struggle in the African American woman."

Everything is a Remix Part 4 / Intellectual Property: "System Failure"

2012-03-14T04:30:00.000-04:00

Everything is a Remix is a great 4-part series produced by Kirby Ferguson, a New York-based filmmaker, about the nature of creativity. This is the final installment.

Part 4 / System Failure: "Our system of law doesn't acknowledge the derivative nature of creativity. Instead, ideas are regarded as property, as unique and original lots with distinct boundaries. But ideas aren't so tidy. They're layered, they’re interwoven, they're tangled. And when the system conflicts with the reality... the system starts to fail."

Imitation of Life [film]

2012-02-23T05:00:00.000-05:00

Info: "Imitation of Life is a 1959 American film directed by Douglas Sirk, starring Lana Turner and John Gavin, Juanita Moore as Annie Johnson, and gospel music star Mahalia Jackson as a church choir soloist. The film is the second film adaptation of Fannie Hurst's novel of the same name. A struggling young actress with a six-year-old daughter sets up housekeeping with a homeless black widow and her light-skinned eight-year-old daughter who rejects her mother by trying to pass for white."

Meet The Natives [tv]

2012-02-23T03:05:00.000-05:00

Wiki: "Meet the Natives: USA is an American reality television series that premiered on the Travel Channel on November 29, 2009.[1] The series follows five tribesmen from the island of Tanna, Vanuatu, as they travel to the United States on an adventure to explore America and the American way of life. During their visit to America they also have a special message of peace and kindness that they wish to relay"

The Secret Life of Plants [film]

2012-02-22T05:00:00.000-05:00

Tagline: "An incredible world of beauty and terror with a haunting music score by Stevie Wonder."

IMDB Review: "The Secret Life of Plants is a fascinating documentary featuring time lapse photography, historical film clips, and the music of Stevie Wonder. The best parts were the scientific experiments where people all over the world hooked up various plants to oscilloscopes, lie detectors, etc. to see if they feel pain, fear, etc. The film tries to prove that there is some sort of global consciousness. I don't really believe that, but am still amazed by the results of the experiments. For instance, a cabbage had a reaction when smokers blew smoke at it. In another test, an office plant hooked up to a lie detector started reacting when its owner thought of burning it."

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio / Simon Schama's "Power of Art"

2012-02-14T05:00:00.000-05:00

Info: "In this painting of the victory of virtue over evil it's supposed to be David who is the centre of attention, but have you ever seen a less jubilant victory? On his sword is inscribed "Humilitus Occideit Superbium", that is, humility conquers pride. This is the battle that has been fought out inside Caravaggio's head between the two sides of the painter that are portrayed here.

"There's the devout, courageous David Caravaggio, and then there's the criminal sinner Goliath Caravaggio. 'I know who I've been,' says the pathetic head, unable to look us in the eyes. 'I know what I have done.' It's a desolate vision. Offered to us in utter blackness. No virtue. No grace. Just the dark truth from the inside of Caravaggio's head, flooded with tragic self knowledge.

For me the power of Caravaggio's art is the power of truth, not least about ourselves. If we are ever to hope for redemption we have to begin with the recognition that in all of us the Goliath competes with the David."" (source)

Microcosmos le Peuple de L'herbe / The People of the Grass [film]

2012-01-19T05:01:00.000-05:00

IMDB: "1996. A documentary of insect life in meadows and ponds, using incredible close-ups, slow motion, and time-lapse photography. It includes bees collecting nectar, ladybugs eating mites, snails mating, spiders wrapping their catch, a scarab beetle relentlessly pushing its ball of dung uphill, endless lines of caterpillars, an underwater spider creating an air bubble to live in, and a mosquito hatching. Written by Will Gilbert"

Have a little faith ... "Excellence is just the bare minimum" / RZA and Kanye West on focus and discipline

2011-12-20T10:01:00.000-05:00

Reminiscent of Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hour theory, master RZA speaks on young master Kanye's worth ethic in a preview from his forthcoming Red Bull Music Academy lecture, and Kanye gets introspective while on tour with Jay-Z promoting Watch The Throne.

"I'ma tell you something this young man does. They get up every morning to eat breakfast together, his whole crew. They talk about yesterday and the next day and the present. They plan, all over breakfast. They sit there and they talk about what they gonna do, what they did and how to make the music better. Then, they go exercise together. They go to the YMCA. They play basketball, lift weights. Focus, get the energy out ... He would do some charity work ... Therefore, he's doing the good deed of the day as well, good karma. Then, he goes to the studio. He stays there from 4pm and when I was there, we left at 4. So, 12 hours of in-studio work. Then he'd go to bed and do it again the next day ... The way everything happened was like focused energy, yo. Actually, I've never seen that from a rapper before. I come from Wu-Tang Clan. Y'all know us. 5 of us show up for the concert, the other 3 late, some ain't doin' it, some are sleeping. It's not only his talent that took him to the top. I've gotta say, it's his focus, y'all."
-RZA on Kanye West

"We have to rethink, reinspire. Wash the brain, don't brainwash. And allow people to think for themselves ... but present people with amazing options, to the best of what you know the truth to be. I feel like people can find themselves sooner. You know, people be like, "I don't know what I want to be." Well you know what you want to be, but you don't want to say out loud what you want to be cause you don't think it's cool enough ... It's crazy and it's delusional until it comes into fruition. You always gotta see the end goal and everything else and just fill in the blanks."
-Kanye West

"One thing Wu-Tang had back in those days was admiration of eachother ... All of us probably ... make our music privately by ourselves. I think that hurts music. Music is actually better when it's shared amongst groups."
-RZA

"Nas is one of the best emcees to ever touch the ~~light~~ mic."
-RZA on Kanye and Nas

A documentary that runs the LA Rebellion film movement down with style / Spirits of Rebellion [trailer]

2011-12-14T10:01:00.000-05:00

"I'm wishfully imagining there's a documentary somewhere called 'The LA Rebellion' that runs all of this down with style."
-Achali

We asked for it.

Director Zeinabu irene Davis' Creative Statement: "Spirits of Rebellion documents the lives and work of a small group of critically acclaimed, but as of yet relatively unknown group of black filmmakers and media artists known as the Los Angeles Rebellion, the first sustained movement in the United States by a collective of minority filmmakers that aimed to reimagine the production process so as to represent, reflect on, and enrich the day to day lives of people in their own communities.

All of the filmmakers associated with this movement attended UCLA between the “Watts riots” of 1965 and the “urban uprising” in Los Angeles that followed the Rodney King verdict in 1992, but black film students at UCLA and beyond continue to look to this group of filmmakers for inspiration, filmmaking advice, and practical guidance. Independent filmmakers, grassroots media makers, and various media artists in the US have found the example of the LA Rebellion School of Filmmakers to be an inspiring example of commitment to the medium of film as a tool for imaginative art and transformative storytelling.

Following from the Ethnocommunications Program at UCLA (1968-1972), an experimental affirmative action initiative which created a space for ethnically Latino, Asian, Native American, and African students to collaborate on the production of films, student filmmakers of color remade the university and production process in ways that addressed their shared, though rarely discussed, sense of how to work together and why it was important to make films.

Headlined by Julie Dash, Charles Burnett, Haile Gerima, Billy Woodberry, Barbara McCullough, Ben Caldwell, and Larry Clark, the LA Rebellion filmmakers collectively imagined and created a black cinema against the conventions of Hollywood and Blaxploitation films by attending to the quiet moments of everyday life in their communities, and paying homage to the dignity of their characters.

Spirits of Rebellion will address a series of questions about what we might learn from the LA Rebellion today. As is often the case, the moniker LA Rebellion was one conceived not by the filmmakers themselves, but by critics trying to name a group of films, in retrospect, that shared a common spirit. Nonetheless, the sense of community fostered by overlapping hopes for social and political change, and the collaborative work process that the filmmakers developed continues to connect them to one another, while informing the lives of those who chose not to pursue a career in film production.

Through intimate interviews with the filmmakers, archival research, and discussions with younger black artists, Spirits of Rebellion inquires into the future of a media-based social movement that started in the 1960s. How do the filmmakers assess the successes and failures of their efforts to create alternative cinematic forms for political ends? In what ways do they see their films expressing these aims? Where and how does the spirit of this movement manifest itself today, and what kinds of work practices innovated through the LA Rebellion might inform the principles of marginalized cinema collectives of the future? What are the long-term impacts of the public programs that enabled these filmmakers to access the resources to make films as students, and how should these insights inform future policies for funding the production of art and culture?

Against the backdrop of cuts to social services and public education globally, transformations in the process of producing and distributing media, and growing wealth gaps in cities throughout the globe, it is an unusually poignant and urgent moment to reflect on the legacy of the LA Rebellion." (source)

"Obviously, IT is love" / Stevie Wonder: Songs In The Key of Life [film]

2011-12-12T10:01:00.000-05:00

Stevie Wonder's "Songs In The Key of Life" is the kind of album that grows up and old with you. That is to say, you can likely find yourself in it -- via a lyric, a riff, an implied sentiment -- at any given point in your life. Go behind the scenes with Stevie as he walks you through the making of his classic '70s album. And take another read of Bryan Wilhite's breakdown of Stevie's 'greatest love song ever' for good measure.

Stevie Wonder: Songs In The Key of Life [1997]

{Part 1}

{Part 2}

{Part 3}

{Part 4}

{Part 5}

{Part 6}

{Part 7}

{Part 8}

Marvel Comics' "Black Panther" [film]

2011-12-01T10:01:00.000-05:00

Wiki: "Black Panther is an American cartoon series by Marvel Animation in partnership with BET, based on the popular Marvel Comics superhero of the same name. [...] The series was only broadcast on the Australian children's channel ABC3 in January 2010.

"[...] African-American writer-editor Dwayne McDuffie said of the Jungle Action "Black Panther" [comic] feature:

'This overlooked and underrated classic is arguably the most tightly written multi-part superhero epic ever. If you can get your hands on it ... sit down and read the whole thing. It's damn-near flawless, every issue, every scene, a functional, necessary part of the whole. Okay, now go back and read any individual issue. You'll find seamlessly integrated words and pictures; clearly introduced characters and situations; a concise (sometimes even transparent) recap; beautifully developed character relationships; at least one cool new villain; a stunning action set piece to test our hero's skills and resolve; and a story that is always moving forward towards a definite and satisfying conclusion. That's what we should all be delivering, every single month. Don [McGregor] and company did it in only 17 story pages per issue'

"Critic Jason Sacks has called the arc "Marvel's first graphic novel":

'[T]here were real character arcs in Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four [comics] over time. But ... 'Panther's Rage' is the first comic that was created from start to finish as a complete novel. Running in two years' issues of Jungle Action (#s 6 through 18), 'Panther's Rage' is a 200-page novel that journeys to the heart of the African nation of Wakanda, a nation ravaged by a revolution against its king, T'Challa, the Black Panther'"

Black Panther (watch)

Counterfeit [shortfilm]

2011-11-30T10:01:00.000-05:00

Creative statement: "Can you live honestly in a dishonest world? Malik, a West African immigrant, has found his small corner of the American Dream hustling illegal knockoffs and turning small cons on unsuspecting tourists in New York's Chinatown. For him it's just business. Until a fellow emigré entreats him to sell a briefcase of real Rolexes in this sea of counterfeits."

A good day to be black and sexy

2011-11-22T10:01:00.001-05:00

{liberatormagazine.com exclusive feature}

“And I hate to tell you too much, cuz I stay with too much pride
And we way too young to know love; maybe not, but we don’t need no rush
Don't believe in love at first sight, but I believe in love at first ... huh”
-Wale, “Lotus Flower Bomb”

Well, kids, there’s a whole lot of huh-ing happening in this movie. That fact, however, should not be the sole reason for your attraction to or rejection of this film, which is crafted around six vignettes of mostly black folks navigating a variety of sexual predicaments. (I’m choosing to forgive the story featuring the interracial couple as a poorly executed attempt to appeal to a larger audience.) Virgins, adulterers, freaks -- errrrbody gets air time in director Dennis Dortch’s dramedy. In an odd way, the scintillating title and sometimes gratuitous lust-fueled scenes actually mask the hidden truth that the sexual escapades highlighted are meant to function as an entry point into a much needed conversation about black love and relationships.

What the movie loses in depth of storylines -- and it is quite lacking in that regard -- it recovers in breadth of characters. I appreciate what feels like an intentional effort to move beyond a rap-video clichéd projection of black men as hypermasculine, over-sexed sperm-spewing machines and black women as preternaturally eager fetish-worthy receptacles. Given that, my favorite narrative is “Reprise,” which centers on a couple negotiating a particular sexual encounter. The crux of this specific tale is that she wants something he doesn’t. The thing itself isn’t important; in roughly four minutes, and about as many sentences -- not including grunts -- what emerges is an example of how symbiosis in a relationship, when added to an acute attunement to your own and your partner’s needs, can enrich the various levels on which the relationship is experienced. It’s a portrayal that goes beyond him as pussy-slaying African warrior, à la Shaka Zulu and Luanda Magere, and her as docile, passive, “Daddy, you the boss” cooing harajuku Barbie, offering a touchingly rich, honest and surprisingly tender image of black male and female sexuality. The moral of this story is that the only thing sexier than a confident black man is one confident enough to be vulnerable. Yes, Lawdy.

The theme that unifies Dortch’s distinct vignettes is that there’s never a bad day to be black and sexy. And really, who could disagree with that? This is a worthy addition to your Netflix queue.

The Society of the Spectacle [film]

2011-11-07T10:01:00.000-05:00

I've always seen Karl Marx as more student of capitalism than enemy, teacher, or sage. The question is, what is the value of any revolutionary theory today? The medium is still the message in an age where you, you, you, and I can all choose to be editors and publishers of our lives, for better or worse reasons, regardless of content and the intentions of the gatekeepers; increasingly you and I. This film (shout to vonSchadow) provides an adequate answer to this question. Theory that today must be considered revolutionary at its best promotes contemplation, empowering through access to perspective, inspiring over fear the use of judgement. In a society dominated by it, the spectacle in effect renders us totally paralyzed -- often subconsciously -- if we are not engaged in the negation of it from a point outside of it, which is increasingly difficult. Now, if the philosopher were the actual creator, theory would resemble instruction. It's frightening that this is claimed and accepted as true at times, but the notion of the separate actor is still necessary because this is not true. The obvious message here is that life, if it's to be made and kept good for us, is to be lived ever more considerately. We should read all instruction manuals with seriousness and care and where there are none, soak up perspective, consider, and prepare to make the road and instructions by walking. It's testimony to the power of the serious and active student of non-~~virtual~~spectacle reality that Karl Marx is as polarizing of a figure as he stands today. For students of real yesterdays, todays, and tomorrows, consider this.

Synopsis: The Society of the Spectacle (La Société du spectacle) is a work of philosophy and critical theory by Guy Debord; covering ideas such as the Degradation of human life, Mass media and commodity fetishism, and Comparison between religion and marketing. The [original] work is a series of two hundred and twenty-one short theses (about a paragraph each), divided into nine chapters. The black and white film released in 1973 was Debord's first feature-length film. It uses found footage and detournement in a radical criticism of mass marketing and its role in the alienation of modern society. (wiki)

The Society of the Spectacle (watch)

Nothing But A Man [film]

2011-10-24T12:01:00.000-04:00

"Nothing But A Man is a film that was made in 1964 and was directed by Michael Roemer. The story is about a black railroad worker who falls in love with a black school teacher who is the town’s preacher’s daughter. The story depicts the struggle of their strive for “a meaningful place” in their society. It stars Ivan Dixon as Duff Anderson and Abbey Lincoln as Josie Dawson. It was originally a play that came out in 1933 but was not made into a movie until 1964. According to the Washington Post, 'Nothing But a Man is one of the most sensitive films about black life ever made in this country'." (wiki) Thanks to young master Anyabwile for this.

Nothing But A Man (watch)

"Nobody Can Predict The Moment Of Revolution" / "We The People Have Found Our Voice" [shortfilms]

2011-10-10T12:01:00.000-04:00

Unquestionably the most-asked question I've heard regarding the fledgling #occupywallstreet movement is, "what do they want?" Unquestionably the best answer I've heard from those participating in the ongoing protest comes from these short films below: "It's not a protest about being against something, it's a way to formulate something new." We can't say if this is the revolution, but it's certainly nice to see people displaying agency.

RELATED: "The Corporation" [film] / Capitalism: A Love Story [film]

Creative Statement: "We want to share insights into the formation of a new social movement as it is still taking shape in real time. The video was shot during the 5th and 6th day of the occupation. This idea to occupy the financial district in New York City was inspired by recent uprisings in Spain, Greece, Egypt, and Tunisia which most of us were following online. Despite of the corporate media's effort to silence the protests, and Yahoo's attempt to to censor it in e-mail communication, the occupation is growing in numbers and spreading to other cities in the US and abroad."

Creative Statement: "We the people have found our voice" (NYC General Assembly, September 27, 2011). "If it’s our sharing that makes us powerful, why return to normal? This life is more worth living than the one we left behind" (Leaflet, Solidarity March with Occupy Wall Street, October 5, 2011). "How do our voices of dissent encounter each other? Do we really want to merge our raging cacophony into a unified political agenda? What if the voice of the people is always in a mode of becoming? Welcome to the hidden track of Occupy Wall Street: We are discovering new ways in which our desires can resonate together. This space is our sonogram of potential."

Robert Downey's "Putney Swope" versus Sam Greenlee's "The Spook Who Sat By The Door" [film]

2011-10-07T12:01:00.000-04:00

Some stories should be told many times and we have the capacity to tell many. But, if you had to choose ... ? Putney Swope (1969) and The Spook Who Sat By The Door (1973) are two "inside man" classics from the 70s era. Greenlee's "Spook" joins the CIA as a affirmative-action hire, only to return to his neighborhood with the skills he acquires to train youth into freedom fighters, while Downey's "Swope" is a token black "music director" at a Madison Avenue advertising firm who becomes the chairman of the board after a heart attack kills his predecessor and his fellow board members accidentally vote him as replacement. Both are classic cautionary tales of taking down the system from the inside.

The story takes place in the early 1970s in Chicago. The CIA has been required for political reasons to recruit African-Americans for training. Only one of them, Dan Freeman (Lawrence Cook), secretly a black nationalist, successfully completes the training process. He becomes the first black man in the agency and is given a desk job -- Top Secret Reproduction Center Sections Chief. Freeman understands that he is the token black person in the CIA, and that the CIA defines his function as providing proof of the agency's supposed commitment to integration and progress. Therefore, after completing his training in guerrilla warfare techniques, weaponry, communications and subversion, Freeman puts in just enough time to avoid raising any suspicions about his motives before he resigns from the CIA and returns to work in the social services in Chicago. Upon his return, Freeman immediately begins recruiting young black men living in the inner city of Chicago to become “Freedom Fighters” teaching them all of the guerrilla warfare tactics that he learned from the CIA. They become a guerrilla group with Freeman as the secret leader. (wiki)

Putney Swope, the only black man on the executive board of an advertising firm, is accidentally put in charge after the unexpected death of the chairman of the board: each board member actually believed that he, himself, should be elected Chairman, but the bylaws of the corporation prohibit voting for oneself, so each individual member voted his secret ballot for the person that no one else would vote for: Putney Swope. Renaming the business "Truth and Soul, Inc.", Swope replaces all but one of the white employees and insists they no longer accept business from companies that produce alcohol, war toys, or tobacco. The success of the business draws unwanted attention from the United States Government, which considers it "a threat to the national security." (wiki)

"Creativity isn't magic" / Kirby Ferguson's Everything Is A Remix [film]

2011-09-15T12:01:00.000-04:00

Everything is a Remix is a great 4-part series produced by Kirby Ferguson, a New York-based filmmaker, about the nature of creativity. The final installment is due this fall. The beauty to me, by the way, is discovering (and appreciating) the magic of the non-magic.

Part 1: The Song Remains The Same / Remixing is a folk art but the techniques are the same ones used at any level of creation: copy, transform, and combine. You could even say that everything is a remix.

Part 2: Remix Inc. / An exploration of the remix techniques involved in producing films. Part Two of a four-part series.

Part 3: The Elements Of Creativity / Creativity isn't magic. Part three of this four-part series explores how innovations truly happen.

Grand Theft Congo [film]

2011-08-18T12:01:00.001-04:00

Journeyman Pictures presents a concise 15 minute documentary on the mineral war in the Democractic Republic of Congo.

Creative statement: “The major problem facing Africa is corruption and control of resources. In the DRC, the military is stealing minerals to sell to Western companies. At a remote mine in central DRC, workers with torches and pick axes hack at the ruddy earth. They are mining cassiterite, a mineral vital in the production of laptops and mobile phones. But dispersed among the miners are Congolese Government troops -- in plain clothes for the camera -- literally forcing most workers to work at gunpoint. 'The soldiers always steal everything. They even come to shoot people down the mineshafts,' complains Regina Maponda. Western greed for cassiterite is fuelling the boom -- at an airfield near the mine, soldiers jealously guard their loot as it makes it way to Japan and the West. Conflict mining is a curse, and it is difficult to see what the G8 leaders can do.”

Ghanaian-Briton filmmaker John Akomfrah on creating a narrative of migration and 'new ruins' to wander in / "The Nine Muses" [trailer]

2011-08-09T13:01:00.001-04:00

I've long admired the work of John Akomfrah and the Black Audio Film Collective. As a viewer and artist, the way they intermix image, texts, language and sound into their film and exhibition pieces weaves a narrative of the colonial and migrant experience that is not reliant upon binary analysis, but a 'plurality of voices.' The importance of communicating authentic narratives seems to be paramount among my peers and a part of that, especially as 'modern' beings, is weaving those contemporary influences and voices with history and ancestral memories in ways that don't necessarily create a totalizing summary, but rather evokes a line of continual thought that will not be relenting anytime soon. Akomfrah's approach to storytelling is just one among many in this project of a 'collective eternity.' His new film The Nine Muses, includes the film Nine Muses. Akomfrah was given access to the BBC archives and used the project explore his idea on memory and migration, having moved to London at the age of 6 from his native Ghana.

About the film:
“I am obsessed with archival material: those ghostly traces of lived moments, those pariah images and sounds that now occupy a unique space somewhere between history and myth… How does one begin to say something new about a story everyone claims to know? … what considerations should govern how one constructs a “historical fiction” about events and lives that have been profoundly shaped by what the St. Lucian poet Derek Walcott called, “the absence of ruins”? Lives without monuments, without the ‘official’ signature of recognition and interest.

This film is my attempt to suggest what some of those “ruins” might look like, a desire to look into that dark mirror of one’s own past in search of images, ideas, writers and music with which to construct such a monument.” (source)

Sound On Film: Interview: John Akomfrah
(SOURCE: Sound and Music)

Throughout his career, the director John Akomfrah has not only questioned the kind of stories we tell, but the way they are told. Since his earliest work with the Black Audio Film Collective, which he founded in 1982, Akomfrah has explored radical new forms of film-making in order to introduce voices and perspectives - notably those of black and Asian Britons - that have been shut out of official narratives.

The Nine Muses, which premiered at the London Film Festival this month (a shorter version, titled Mnemosyne, has been on display in art galleries throughout the year), is Akomfrah’s take on the story of mass migration in post-war Britain. Arising from a commission by the Made in England arts project, which gave Akomfrah unfettered access to the BBC’s television, sound and film archives, the film mixes footage of immigrant life in the West Midlands with haunting shots of a frozen Alaskan landscape. Just as remarkable, however, is its soundtrack, on which a series of actors read snatches of poetry, novels and philosophy, mingled with industrial noise, songs, and the synth-based compositions of Akomfrah’s collaborator Trevor Mathison.

[...]

Daniel Trilling: At what point in the film-making process do you start to think about the soundtrack?

John Akomfrah: One of the things I’ve tried to do in my work is to reconfigure the traditional relationship between a narrative piece, whether it’s documentary or fiction, and the sound. The traditional relationship is that you put your thing together and then at some point you score it. The assumption always is that the sound component either confirms or establishes something that’s already in place.

I’ve tried to seek a more dialogue-driven relationship between sound and image. The impulse for that comes from two distinct but interrelated sources. One is an abiding passion for the improvisatory gesture in jazz; the second is non-western musical forms, particularly Indian classical music. I’ve tried to see what happens if you bring those two together in some way; what kind of film making aesthetic that might suggest.

[...]

DT: The Last Angel of History is a film about dub, funk, jazz and techno, yet the soundtrack features Mathison’s compositions, rather than any of the music discussed.

JA: The Last Angel of History is about these Black Atlantic sonic worlds that are palpably present in black cultures. They co-exist with the established, legitimate world, but function more like ghosts. It’s a bit like how dub functions with reggae: I am here, I may never quite be the thing everyone accepts as the real, but I am nevertheless essential to how the thing works.

[...]

DT: You’ve written about your desire to create “new ruins” for people to wander in.

JA: I’ve been obsessed for a long time with something I read in Derek Walcott’s Omeros, where he talks about diasporic lives being characterised by an absence of ruins. There are no monuments that even as ruins attest to your existence, of your passing through a space. This then means that the intangibles, be they sound or words, become necessary building blocks. Lives that are not legitimised in the official monument can then be given a certain kind of legitimacy.

That’s very important in The Nine Muses. The very construction of it is about trying to say something of the migrant narrative...

[...]

DT: So is this where sound comes into your films? Does it set up a space where questions like these can be asked – by a plurality of voices?

JA: Absolutely. And there’s no attempt to try and force a unity in the voices. This is only impossible for people who have not heard new music, or not heard Ornette Coleman. Ornette Coleman’s harmolodics said OK, we will agree to start here, and at that point you can fuck off where you want to go, alright? What’s important is what everyone’s making of this.

So the use of these voices in this way is tied to a certain conceptual understanding of how free jazz improvisational techniques have been working in music, certainly for the last 90 years. With The Nine Muses the idea was that you can apply that not just to the sound but to words. (source)

NYC / 2nd annual Black August film showcase at the National Black Theatre

2011-08-08T13:00:00.004-04:00

We're helping bring the Black August film showcase to the National Black Theatre in Harlem this year on Saturday, August 13. Donations (suggested: $10) to the event will go toward supporting Malcolm X Grassroots Movement's ongoing project to connect with and care for political prisoners in honor of the Black August tradition. (On Facebook)

Africa and the Diaspora (4:15pm to 6:20pm)

“Native Sun” directed by Terence Nance & Blitz the Ambassador (21 minutes): A boy journeys from the village to the city in search of his father. Shot entirely in Ghana, the film features the music of hip hop artist Blitz the Ambassador, from his album of the same name.

“The Prodigal Son” directed by Kurt Orderson (64 minutes): Kurt Orderson, a Rastafarian and young filmmaker, from Mitchell’s Plain, Cape Town, came to an understanding of the meaning of black consciousness and thus sought to retrace his great grandfather’s epic journey and legacy– Joseph Orderson, who came from Barbados to Cape Town in the 1890’s and was part of the Universal Negro Improvement Association UNIA, founded by the great Marcus Garvey, the father of contemporary Black Nationalism and Pan Africanism. “The Prodigal Son” retraces the lost history of the Orderson family, and the West Indian community who left the Caribbean in the late 1800’s as emancipated slaves, to settle in District Six, Cape Town. The film was shot on location in South Africa, USA, Barbados and St. Vincent.

SHORT FILM: “A Crocodile Story” directed by Hisham Haj Omer (3 minutes): Refugee Club celebrates the first day of the Referendum Vote in South Sudan, with the release of a short animation created by its founder, Hisham Haj Omar. The first animation released by RC, this effort features a traditional Sudanese song titled “Habibi Taal” sung by Alsarah and produced by Ehab of NasJota Productions.

“Agrarian Reform for Food Sovereignty” directed by Kurt Orderson (37 minutes): The arrival of the Dutch in the Cape in 1652 signaled the beginning of a violent and destructive process, which placed their greed for land and possessions before the rights of the original inhabitants of the land. Suddenly, throughout the Cape, and indeed throughout Africa, following the arrival of other European colonizers, Land, which belonged to Africans, was marked as the private property of Europeans who enslaved Africans. Today, The Right to Agrarian Reform for Food Sovereignty Campaign is asking critical questions about the lack of transformation and land reform in South Africa, post apartheid, and through popular education have mobilized people to recognize their ancestral rights and reclaim land for the purpose of black, emerging, small scale, organic farming.
Black Resistance in the USA (6:25pm to 8pm)

“Know Your Rights: How to Deal With Police Confrontations” directed by the students of Satellite Academy (16 minutes): In the Spring 20011, through a program offered by Educational Video Center and facilitated by teaching artist and documentary filmmaker Dennis Flores, students at Satellite Academy High School produced a short documentary entitled “Know Your Rights: How to Deal With Police Confrontations.” Satellite Academy High School is an alternative public high school and the last educational opportunity for many at risk adolescent youth in New York City. Under the guidance of their instructor, students collectively decide on the theme of the documentary, the script, the scenes to film, and who to interview. In the first part of the documentary, youth decided to interview diverse people on the streets of New York City to engage their experiences with police and law enforcement in general. Through their poignant questions and interactions, we learn that current policing tactics, namely NYPD’s “Stop and Frisk” are disproportionately affecting communities of color; whereby 80% of those stopped and frisked are African American or Latino/a. In the last part, youth address the legal rights and recourse people have when confronted by the police.

“Cointelpro 101″ directed by the Freedom Archives (56 minutes): Beginning in the 1950s with a focus on the Puerto Rican independence movement and continuing through the 1960s and into the 1970s when much of its focus had shifted to the Black Liberation, Chicano Liberation and American Indian Movements, COINTELPRO racked up a number of assassinations, false imprisonments and ruined lives. No government official was ever punished for actions taken under the program’s auspices. The film by Freedom Archives details this history through the artful use of still photos and moving images of the period covered. Films of police attacks and protests; still photos of revolutionary leaders and police murders graphically remind the viewer of Washington’s willingness to do whatever it takes to maintain its control. Organizers who began their political activity during the time of Cointelpro discuss the effect the program had on them and the organizations and individuals they worked with. Indeed, several of the interviewees were themselves targets and spent years in prison (some under false accusations, as in the case of Geronimo ji-Jaga Pratt) or on the run.

“Panther Cubs” (Trailer) directed by Ksisay Sadiki (12 minutes): “Panther Cubs, ” will tell the story of children who grew up with moms and dads who were Black Panthers. Born in the early seventies, we had front row seats to a revolutionary time in history. Our parents boldly tried to change the injustices of the world and organized and resisted the government. They were teenagers, they were idealistic but to us they were our parents. We grew up like any other kid but we also had parents going underground, spent long days in court, visits to prison, tapped phones, continuous threats of kidnapping. To protect themselves our parents taught us a code of secrecy that affects us to this day.In 2010, now adults, we “panther cubs” are starting to reconnect with one another, and the film will follow our attempts to deal with our parents’ choices. Partly because we are now parents ourselves, we are questioning our parents decisions to put their lives – and ours -on the line. How did our parents activism affect us? What was lost and what was gained? With so many ex panthers deceased, in exile, or serving long sentences in prison, was it all worth it? How did the media portrayal of our parents affect our identities? Were they “criminals” or “heroes“? How obligated are we to carry on their legacy? Part first-person essay, part group portrait, the film will focus on the varied lives and experiences of several Panther children.

SHORT FILM: “A Creation Story” directed by Natasha Ngaiza (9 minutes): “A Creation Story” is Natasha Ngaiza’s 2nd year film at Temple University. It is shot on super 16mm film and uses clay animation to reveal the magic of storytelling, hair maintenance and the special relationship between mothers and daughters.

Dinner Break (8pm-8:30pm) Food and snacks will be available at the festival throughout the day.

SHORT FILM: “Mirror Mirror” directed by Tamika R. Guishard (4 minutes): Reflections of Love. This silent film is an exercise in purely visual storytelling. Shot on 16mm. B & W film, Mirror Mirror is a chance meeting between two people that are picture-perfect. Their potential for a match made in heaven is undeniable despite the fact that they have never met…happily ever after?

Hip-Hop, Spoken Word, and Activism (8:35pm-10:30pm)

“Black Womyn Griots” directed by Helen Yohannes (9 minutes): Black Womyn Griots is a film that explores the black literary genre of spoken word. Toronto-based female poets share how they use storytelling as an act of resistance and language as a site of power. This film depicts spoken word as a powerful means to build communities, organize resistance and tell our stories.

“Hip Hop is Bigger than the Occupation” directed by Nana Dankwa (98 minutes): Hip Hop is Bigger than the Occupation is a documentary about a ten day journey of artists traveling through Palestine, teaching and performing Non Violent Resistance through the arts. The tour included M1 of Dead Prez, Shadia Mansour, Marcel Cartier, Mazzi of Soul Purpose, DJ Vega Benetton, Lowkey, Jody McIntyre and Trinidad, Brandon and Lavie from the South West Youth Collaborative/University of Hip Hop Chicago. Staying in the heart of Balata Refugee Camp @ the Yafa Cultural Center in Nablus the group witnesses night raids, meet families of shaheeds as well as young Palestinians who have been jailed, shot, humiliated, they come face to face with Daniel Luria in the heart of Jerusalem and confront him, they visit Hebron where there are roads for the Jews and Roads for the Arabs, the group visits Bi’lin where they get shot at and tear gassed and experience first hand what it felt like living under occupation.

Robots of Brixton / "The 1981 South London riots but through the eyes of robots some 70 years later" [short]

2011-07-27T12:01:00.002-04:00

This rich, conceptual animation from architectural student Kibwe Tavares reimagines the 1981 riots in the Brixton neighborhood of South London, but through the eyes of robots some 70 years later. The film reminded me of a documentary by the Black Audio Film Collective, Handsworth Songs, that also uses archival news footage from the riots to paint an image of struggle, memory and conflict in Britain in the 80s in Afro-Caribbean communities.

Creative Statement:
Brixton has degenerated into a disregarded area inhabited by London's new robot workforce - robots built and designed to carry out all of the tasks which humans are no longer inclined to do. The mechanical population of Brixton has rocketed, resulting in unplanned, cheap and quick additions to the skyline.

The film follows the trials and tribulations of young robots surviving at the sharp end of inner city life, living the predictable existence of a populous hemmed in by poverty, disillusionment and mass unemployment. When the Police invade the one space which the robots can call their own, the fierce and strained relationship between the two sides explodes into an outbreak of violence echoing that of 1981.

The Landlord (1970) [film]

2011-07-20T12:01:00.001-04:00

The Landlord is a 1970 film directed by Hal Ashby, which was based on a screenplay by Bill Gunn and a novel by Kristin Hunter. The film stars Beau Bridges in the lead role of a well to do white man who becomes landlord of an inner city tenement, unaware that the people he is responsible for are low-income, streetwise residents. Also in the cast are Diana Sands, Lee Grant, Pearl Bailey, and Louis Gossett, Jr.

Plot: Elgar Enders (Beau Bridges), a man who lives off his parents' wealth, buys himself an inner-city tenement, in the transitional neighborhood of 1970 Park Slope, Brooklyn, planning to evict all the occupants and construct a luxury home for himself. However, once he ventures into the tenement, he gradually grows fond of the low-income black residents who dwell there. Enders decides to remain as the landlord, and help fix the apartment building. He rebels against his WASP upbringing, and to his parents' dismay, he romances two black women, Lanie and Fanny, (Marki Bey and Diana Sands, respectively). Elgar falls for Lanie, a dancer at a local black club. Lanie is a beautiful black woman who has a mother of Irish descent, and a father of African descent, thus she has light skin and features, and has experienced colorism because of it. Their relationship is strained, as Elgar has an affair with one of his tenants, Fanny...

Qudus Onikeku / "Still Life" [short]

2011-07-13T12:01:00.002-04:00

A work in progress by Qudus Onikeku.

Creative Statement:
Our collective memory of an immemorial past imposes the division between the north and south, between me and "the other" between rationality and irrationality. Do we not recognize the trap? History is too full of failed Prometheans bathing their wounded spirit in the tragic stream. Summoning history to our aid? But more than history, kindred knowledge, kindred findings, kindred rebellions against the lure of terror; for rage is no longer enough to combat the temptation to subside into unproductive, will-sapping wisdoms.

There are levels of despair from which the human spirit cannot recover, some types of suffering are difficult to explain and difficult for others to understand, the trauma that comes with the memory of our proper amnesia comes with an incomprehensible terror. These persisting events that fabricates time and the other, has made violence "a way of thinking" and an instinct to survive.

Human advancement in the frame of the modern world, is debased by tragedy and violence in many layers. The modern man is very much conditioned by opportunism and greed, quest for power and ambition. Leading to a state of social dysfunction where there is no more society, but a bunch of individual people, poised between solitude and amnesia, making individual choices to promote their individual well being.

The contradictions and tragedy that exists in our collective histories, has made it impossible to represent the other with certitude. There is nothing of which we are more certain than the feeling of our selves, our mortality and ego, an ego that seems to maintain a clear and sharp lines of demarcation between the forces of good and bad, until it eats deeply inwards, without any sharp delimitation.

...but the duty of hope is to turn around and heal the world. The mystical significance of today however, is that it constantly provides us with blank pages, in which we shall inscribe our destiny in our own hand writings. The path towards the pure future is to find ways to reintegrate these pairs of contradictions, into an expanded vision of a social experience that is both the same and different, whole and complex.

"STILL/life" is almost paradoxical and against all odds, its non-literal translation into French of "nature morte" that rather places accent on death, seems to be saying the opposite. “STILL/life” is in motion, a tale of the rise and fall of a man, an attempt to conciliation and acceptance of our extremes, an invitation to shed tears with a spark of hope, that coming generations might eventually learn equity from poverty, love from woes and peace from calamities.

We begin this work with the utopia of simultaneously making visible the head and the tail of the same coin at the same time, show the rear of that which is presented in a frontal manner, above all, confront our self-contradictions and oppositions, reflecting on the schizophrenia of the world we live in, and using pure energy as fuel for this first stage of creation. (source)

Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl

2011-07-04T15:01:00.003-04:00

She had me at “I’m awkward.” Such a simple admission -- such a reflection of a significant amount of self-awareness on the speaker’s part. J, the protagonist in Issa Rae’s “The Misadventures of AWKWARD Black Girl,” uttered this phrase at the end of the insanely hilarious web series’ first episode. I was hooked by the fourth episode, during which she and her Indian co-worker, CeCe, invoked Nettie and Celie in a game of The Color Purple-esque patty cake at a staff meeting, in honor of their budding interracial friendship.

After the fifth episode, I went on an unsuccessful iTunes virtual hunt for the Doublemint Twins’ “Booty Shawts,” from the MABG soundtrack. There is much to love about this show, beyond J’s frackin’ funny internal monologues that morph into soliloquies, and the classic, clever one-liners woven into each scene. Case in point: there’s a completely random reference to The Mystery Team, which -- from a personal perspective -- provides much appreciated assurance that I’m not sole black body guilty of adding that flick to my Netflix que...and enjoying, rather immensely, its simultaneously slick and uncouth humor.

Rae’s show is a refreshingly cathartic addition to a narrow public discourse on black woman-ness that considers few descriptors, and perpetuates a debilitatingly limited definition of beauty -- one encapsulated in Weezy and crew’s unending fascination with the “long-haired, thick, red-boned” among our ilk. It’s also complex -- problematic, even -- particularly around issues of queer identity. Yet, J’s voice is just as relevant as that of Lucille Clifton and as resonant as those of other black woman warriors who appeal to our more intellectual and political selves. It adds another chapter to the collective narrative of black womanhood, and functions as a reminder that we all want to be known, seen, valued, and, oy vey, loved for our authentic selves. And our authentic selves are a little weird -- from time to time. And richly textured -- all the time.

In ten-minute-or-so increments, J demonstrates the versatile, dynamic, and multi-faceted nature inherent to personality, giving us permission to laugh with and at ourselves. Most importantly, perhaps, she offers legions of old, young, and somewhere in-between black women more reason to embrace ourselves, and announce our weirdness -- and smartness and silliness and fickleness and mightiness and loveliness -- to the world, while harboring neither hesitation nor apology. Yes, my Liberator friends, I’m the proprietor of multiple selves -- several stories threaded together by a solitary unifying theme. Yes, I’m awkward. Although -- just FYI -- I prefer the less loaded, less judgy, term, “quirky.”

Interview with Issa Rae; Writer, Star and Producer of Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl
(SOURCE: Black Girl With Long Hair)

First off, how did you come up with the idea of doing a web series about being black, female and awkward? So many black women instinctively know that they’re awkward, but few think to express it in media.

I: I came up with the idea a couple of years ago just from my own “secret” thoughts and experiences with people. It was during a time when I was frustrated with the black female characters I was seeing in the media and I realized that this “awkward” character hadn’t really been explored or portrayed in anything I’d ever seen. I feel like social awkwardness is universal and I thought it would be funny to portray it from the POV of an awkward black girl.

Are any of the awkward events taken from your own life? Is there a real-life Fred, D, J, Nina or Cece?

I: It’s definitely an exaggerated version of my life. There isn’t a real life Fred, D or Nina in my life currently, but they’ve all existed at one point in my life, whether middle school, high school or college. CeCe is based on one of my real life best friends but, again, she’s an exaggerated version. The boss is a combination of encounters I’ve had with “wiggas” and overly-curious white people.

A lot of black women complain about lack of representation in the media. As someone who is actually creating a positive representation, I’m sure you have a unique perspective. How can we, as black women, go about creating media that is affirming to us?

I: I think we, as black women, need to just create the media ourselves. If you have an idea, get a crew or get your friends together and make it happen. Right now, pitching your idea to a network exec or an industry liaison just isn’t working, because they have this limited perception of black women and what they THINK black women want to see on screen. I think the web is the best way to go right now, and I’ve seen a lot of GREAT shows come off of the internet. (source/full text)

"Portable Obstruction Device" / A film on social distance, by Stephanie Owens

2011-06-08T12:01:00.000-04:00

A short, light-hearted meditation on social distance by filmmaker Stephanie Owens.

Creative Statement: Instructional Video for the Portable Obstruction Device, is both an infomercial and instructional video for a crudely made apparatus that prevents its user from seeing or being seen from the side.

The Instructional Video is absurd and relatable. The formal presentation of an awkward object is ridiculous, however its suggested uses seem logical. The combination of the two is comical. Laughter becomes a defense mechanism used to reconcile the discomfort produced from recognizing the absurdity of such an object, and simultaneously acknowledging the desire to use one.

Advertising is fore-grounded as the voice presents a product to the viewer. However, its reference to early instructional video positions the P.O.D as a precursor to a contemporary object like the iPod or iPhone. Such technological devices function similarly to the P.O.D because they also limit physical interactions between people. In The Instructional Video, the distance between the narrator’s voice and action taking place directs the viewer’s attention to the difference between how these types of devices are presented and what they actually achieve.

In the darkened room of the gallery, people strategically place themselves in relation to the monitor and to other bodies. Why so much space? Even though the P.O.D does not exist, present day technology and American cultural customs generate the same effect. Distance.

"Politics were lost and totally replaced by lifestyle ... People with unlimited, ever-changing needs increasingly dependent on business for their identity ... Poll the public psychology to find out desires of individuals then come up with a candidate that responds to those desires" / The Century of the Self: Or, the 20th century man who "did not believe that true democracy could ever work" as father of 21st century politics [film]

2011-06-02T12:01:00.005-04:00

Ever wonder who invented the practice of creating fake independent studies that produce “research” reporting that products are good for you? Is there a moral issue around such practices; giving people what they want by taking away their defenses to manipulation?

The Century of the Self is a British television (BBC) documentary film that looks closely at the role of psychoanalysis in marketing and public relations, and how those in power have used Freud's theories to control the “dangerous” crowd in an age of mass democracy.

We’ve talked in the past here about manipulation -- both the possibility of feeling free and not really being free and the temptation of retreating into the safety of individual happiness at the expense of the whole truth.

The Century of the Self is interesting and relevant because it tells the story of the construction of the most effective apparatus of manipulation in the modern world.

The first major blip on the radar comes with the work of Sigmund Freud. The track continues with Freud’s nephew, and agent, Edward Bernays and the invention of public relations as a self-proclaimed nice word for propaganda -- the manipulation of the masses' subconscious animal instinct in order to give them what they really want.

The film challenges us to consider the entire history of mass manipulation and confront both the truth of our exposure and our susceptibility to it. For instance, the film’s consideration of corporate marketing in the rise of feminism. Familiar heroes appear in this narrative too. Martin Luther King Jr. is revealed as a critic of normative psychological theory and popular views of maladjustment:

"There are certain things in our nation and in the world which I am proud to be maladjusted and which I hope all men of good-will will be maladjusted until the good societies realize. I say very honestly that I never intend to become adjusted to segregation and discrimination. I never intend to become adjusted to religious bigotry. I never intend to adjust myself to economic conditions that will take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few. I never intend to adjust myself to the madness of militarism, to self-defeating effects of physical violence."

Easy answers are also interrogated, and things aren’t always what they seem. These are state-of-the-art mind games, afterall. Like Earth Kitt’s ostensible self-empowering love, or Puff Daddy’s Vote or Die campaign, the human potential movement is revealed not only as a precursor to self-discovery, but also as a doorway to the idea of the forever-unfulfilled consumer.

Is this freedom that I'm feeling?
A fine line between neglecting and worshiping self-discovery is revealed. Werner Erhardt’s EST training was sort of both revolutionary and fascist in its ability to simultaneously free minds and strengthen the status quo. If existentialism's endpoint was the peeling back of layer after layer until the realization that it was all meaninglessness and emptiness, then here people began to believe that “it's empty and meaningless that it's meaningless and empty.” People were encouraged to invent themselves from this “powerful place of nothingness” from which “something can be built.” They were encouraged to believe that only the individual mattered, that there is no social concern, that “you need be all you think about”, and that it “wasn’t selfish to think about yourself, it was your highest duty.” The original idea was that, through discovering and expressing one's self, a new culture would be born that would challenge the state. What emerged with the help of reformed hippies like Jerry Rubin was the idea that people could be happy within themselves and that changing society was irrelevant. Politics were lost and totally replaced by lifestyle. Socialism had gone personal. In 1970 3-5% of Americans expressed this individualistic perspective, by 1980 the vast majority (80%) did.

"Candidates for the presidency of the United States had been pre-packaged and designed for many many years, what was new was an attempt to use very sophisticated, or pseudo-sophisticated, techniques to poll the public psychology, to find out precisely what the desires of the individuals were, and then to come up with a candidate and a platform and images and words that exactly responded to those deep desires."
-Robert Reich

Bernays' democra-city...
According to the film, when the technicality of how to actually be self-expressive arose, it was American business that stepped in to help these new “beings” express themselves -- “by reading, measuring, and fulfilling the desires of these new unpredictable consumers and the individuated wants, whims and desires of these more-evolved human beings.” Abraham Maslow's hierarchy would be a new way to organize people into types -- self expression was not limited, it fell into identifiable types called lifestyles and values. "I-am-me's"... "Experientials"... "Societally conscious"... and so on. If a new product expressed a person's values it would be bought by them, and not just products but the politicians they would elect. These so-called "inner-directeds" voted overwhelmingly for Ronald Reagan, shocking observers who predicted they would never elect a right-wing candidate. "If you look at age, sex you can't figure it out, only when you look at values … Capitalism managed to develop products that took our philosophy and agreed with it then created products that help you be this limitless self." It fitted perfectly with changes in industrial design. Computers enabled manufacturers to create in short runs … “Went from a market of limited needs to a market of unlimited needs. As a consequence, economies now have unlimited horizons. And while the "new beings" felt liberated, they had become increasingly dependent on business. The ultimate endpoint is that there is no society, only individual people making individual choices to promote their individual well-being. And this new reality molded by corporations would be mimicked by government and politicians.”

“The only way to get the consumer votes back was to forget all ideology and bring the same consumer rules philosophy that the business community had because politics need to be as sensitive to the bottom line as business. Instead of treating them as targets you treat them as people you can learn from … Neuro personality polls to find out if someone was a swing voter and identify whether swing voters fell into identifiable psychological types … What's the point of getting reelected if u have no mandate to do anything once you're reelected.. and he'd say what's the point of a mandate if u can't get reelected?”

"The World's Fair created a spectacle, in which all of these concerns were met... Company after company presented itself as the sort of centerpiece of a society in which human desire and human want and human anxiety would all be responded to and would all be met purely through the free enterprise system. There was this sort of notion that the free market was not something that was guided by ideologies or political power, but something that simply was guided by the people's will … This was the model of democracy that both New Labour and the American Democrats had bought in to in order to regain power. They had used techniques developed by business to read the desires of consumers, and they had accepted Bernays' claim that this was a better form of democracy … In reality the World's Fair had been an elaborate piece of propaganda designed by Bernays for his clients, the giant American corporations. Privately, Bernays did not believe that true democracy could ever work. He had been profoundly influenced in this by his uncles theories of human nature. Freud believed that individuals were not driven by rational thought but by primitive, unconscious desires and feelings. And Bernays believed that this meant it was too dangerous to let the masses ever have control over their own lives, that consumerism was a way of giving people the illusion of control, while allowing a responsible elite to continue managing society ... But what worked for business in designing products led the Labour government into a bewildering maze of contradictory (individualistic) whims and desires … You have a problem in terms of deciding what you're going to do, if all you do is actually listen to a mass of individual opinions that are forever fluctuating and don't really have any coherence and, crucially, are not set in context.”

Part One: Happiness Machines

Part Two: The Engineering of Consent

Part Three: There is a Policeman Inside All Our Heads; He Must Be Destroyed

Part Four: Eight People Sipping Wine in Kettering

"Matière Grise (Grey Matter)" / A film about imagination and madness by Rwanda's Kivu Ruhorahoza

2011-05-13T12:01:00.000-04:00

The film Matière Grise (Grey Matter) by 28 year-old writer/director Kivu Ruhorahoza recently premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and took home awards for Special Jury Mention and Best Actor for Shami Bizimana. Ruhorahoza explained that “Matter” is a movie “about imagination and madness.” He simply wanted to show the lives and confusions of young Rwandese people struggling with trauma. “I wanted to show on screen that loss of sanity that so many of us in Rwanda have experienced,” he said.

Synopsis (Tribeca Film Festival):
Balthazar is a young African filmmaker on the brink of directing his first project, "The Cycle of the Cockroach," a fictional story about a young woman who survived unspeakable atrocities only to find herself committed to the same mental institution as a man driven insane by the crimes he perpetrated during the war. Potential funders for the film insist the themes are too bleak and pessimistic—they encourage Balthazar to make a "message" film that raises awareness about gender-based violence or HIV/AIDS instead. But he refuses to give up. Instead of telling his production team the news, Balthazar continues preparations for the film without financing or equipment. After rehearsing a scene with each of the characters, reality blurs and scenes from the script materialize, provoking the question: Can a film like this exist only in the director's dreams? Armed with a daring and creative visual language, writer/director Kivu Ruhorahoza boldly grasps at the illusory trick of representation in the wake of trauma and its ensuing madness. Paralleling the protagonist in his film, Ruhorahoza's debut marks the very first feature-length narrative film directed by a Rwandan filmmaker living in his homeland.

Q&A: Filmmaker’s Path From Rwanda to Tribeca
(SOURCE: New York Times)

“Grey Matter,” a feature film from the writer and director Kivu Ruhorahoza, represents the Tribeca Film Festival’s first movie from Rwanda by a Rwandan filmmaker. The film, which has its world premiere on April 21, blends fantasy and reality in its portrayal of the aftermath of the genocide in Rwanda as seen through the eyes of a novice director struggling to make a film called “The Cycle of the Cockroach.” Mr. Ruhorahoza, 28, spoke recently to Arts Beat about the inspiration for the movie and its title, how Flaubert and Norman Mailer piqued his interest in storytelling, and why he chose filmmaking over practicing law. These are excerpts from that conversation.

Q.How did “Grey Matter” come about?

I wanted to start with a short story about two siblings who are experiencing trauma. Then I wrote another story about a madman who might have been involved in the killing of the parents of those siblings. It became one really long story. It was really, really experimental and not easy to understand. I tried to raise money. It became really frustrating. It had some elements of my own life. I was suffering to tell the story. So why not write about me suffering to tell the story? I wrote the part about a filmmaker who is not able to make a film that is so dear to his heart.

Q.Do you have vivid memories of the Tutsi genocide?

Yeah. I absolutely remember. I was eleven and a half. I had gone out of Kigali to go visit my grandmother who was very sick. So it all happened in Kigali while I was on the other side of the country. When I finally did talk to my family by phone I’d hear gunshots and bombs in the background. I could hear the panicked voices on the telephone. On the radio they were talking about thousands of bodies in the streets and people being killed, systematically. I started worrying all the time, in my 11-year-old mind. I developed some sort of a trauma. Not talking to anyone. Crying for no reason. It went on for a few weeks until I heard it was false news, spread by some people who wanted to help the family, just so the killers would stop looking for them. By the end of the genocide, when I went back to Kigali to find my family, they had gone through something I hadn’t gone through. I didn’t know how to talk to them. I didn’t know how to ask them. It will probably always be a difficult discussion between me and my family. (full interview / source)

"Born out of the failure of the liberal dream ... politicians now promise to protect us from nightmares" / Leo Strauss and Sayyid Qutb: The Power of Nightmares & the Rise of Fear [film]

2011-04-26T12:01:00.003-04:00

The Power of Nightmares, subtitled The Rise of the Politics of Fear, is a BBC documentary film series, written and produced by Adam Curtis. Its three one-hour parts consist mostly of a montage of archive footage with Curtis' narration. The series was first broadcast in the United Kingdom in late 2004 and has subsequently been broadcast in multiple countries and shown in several film festivals, including the 2005 Cannes Film Festival. This film explores the origins in the 1940s and 50s of Islamic Fundamentalism in the Middle East, and Neoconservatism in America, parallels between these movements, and their effect on the world today.

Creative statement: "In the past our politicians offered us dreams of a better world. Now they promise to protect us from nightmares. The most frightening of these is the threat of an international terror network. But just as the dreams were not true, neither are these nightmares. In a new series, the Power of Nightmares explores how the idea that we are threatened by a hidden and organised terrorist network is an illusion. It is a myth that has spread unquestioned through politics, the security services and the international media. At the heart of the story are two groups: the American neo-conservatives and the radical Islamists. Both were idealists who were born out of the failure of the liberal dream to build a better world. These two groups have changed the world but not in the way either intended. Together they created today's nightmare vision of an organised terror network. A fantasy that politicians then found restored their power and authority in a disillusioned age. Those with the darkest fears became the most powerful."

Part One: Baby it's Cold Outside

Part Two: The Phantom Victory

Part Three: The Shadows in the Cave

"Idealists and sometimes we're young and foolish" / Embattled keepers of the Juice: What lessons would Tupac Shakur have had for Soulja Boy?

2011-04-25T12:01:00.001-04:00

{liberatormagazine.com exclusive feature}

"How completely the new thing took after the old."
-Ayi Kwei Armah, The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born

I had a conversation with a friend the other day where we were discussing Toni Morrison’s “Beloved,” generally, and particularly, the character of Beloved as a veritable physical incarnation of unreconciled, or unchanneled (as in constipated) generational energy.

Specifically, the character of Beloved -- newly reborn and childlike -- embodies three generations of slavery and is a symbol of the spectre of the more general historical past of slavery just as she haunts the lives of her mother, Sethe, and anyone else who comes in contact with the family. Beloved forces all of the characters in the novel to first recognize the dysfunction from the past, understand it and come to terms with it before she leaves.

Morrison gave insight into Beloved’s origins in one part when Sethe shares with Beloved details about her mother and the significance of her mother's skin branding: “I am the only one who got this mark now. The rest dead," the mother said. "If something happens to me and you can’t tell me by my face, you can know me by this mark.” In an attempt to offer a profound reply, Sethe says she wants a mark as well and her mother slaps her. By not completely understanding the full meaning of the mark and even more importantly, by asking for one of her own, the young and ignorant Sethe was, essentially, asking her mother for a repetition of the same history -- asking to have a cruelly-garnered identifying mark in the event that she might someday be so mangled by dysfunction.

She wanted the Juice.

By now, you might have heard that young rapper Soulja Boy is reportedly slated to star as Tupac’s Bishop, in a 2011 rendering of the 1992 hood classic, “Juice,” in conjunction with a mixtape release of the same name.

As a ricochet of that earlier conversation, I had a fleeting thought over the weekend of Soulja Boy as Tupac’s contemporary “Beloved;” which led me to think about cultural inheritance, genealogies and the physical manifestations of the “dark sides.”

First, there was already an insightful conversation about Tupac’s trajectory a while back (Tupac = Bob Marley?) which, at first, presciently invoked Soulja Boy, or probably, moreso, the likes of him, as a possible destination point:

/////
O: It was easy for me to discredit Tupac ("gangster rap violence, etc") until I was knee-deep in my 20s. I personally began to question if discounting lives such as Tupac's is what we are institutionalized to do. The dude could have been a hop-up-out-the-bed-turn-my-swag-on cat with the attention he had …. I later saw Pac as myself in MY 20s, a young dude coming out his teens with questions and thoughts that may have not been as polished as Fred Hampton Sr, Boots, or Rosa Clemente.
/////

And went on to trace the trajectory of his life, underscoring both the perils and the promise of his abbreviated life:

/////
Achali: i hope no one believes that pac got the attention he got merely on his own merits... that would be foolish to believe. pac got the attention he got PARTIALLY on his own merits... and partially because he was playing the street cred game... and part cause he played the capitalist game pac was smart enough to know that in order to get the ear of the streets he had to do some street shit and so he stayed in the streets and got into street drama... question is, is that wise? i think it could have been more wise had he pursued his strategy with some kind of organized backing... even if it was the elders... but u right he was 25... give him 5 more years and he might have figured that out...HE WAS figuring that out, no question. what we have to be careful not to do is praise the pac that lived and died at 25 as if THAT is the complete picture... we have to look forward and see where pac was going and what he COULD HAVE been if he kept going in that direction... THEN we see a MORE complete person... someone who we can actually look to for guidance...
/////

To add to that conversation in light of the present context, I find myself able and willing to distinguish Pac’s trajectory, which may have very well been a positive, forward-thrusting one, from the unintended consequences and figurative offspring that his alchemy of paranoia and capitalism-infused highs may have conjured. Or, even look at them in tandem.

Soulja Boy becomes more palatable to me (and, very plainly, I am able to get past my initial nostalgia-driven anxiety at the news of the pending “Juice” remake), when I consider him as Tupac’s artistic progeny – having inherited the charisma, captive audience and now the “Juice.” And what of his potential trajectory and the possibilities and promises of as yet unrevealed inheritances? The ones posited here as being “seldom visible. Only on the lower frequencies can we discern them, just like disinheritances.” In terms of the forces that generate it (capitalism, ego), for me, there is a direct path, though admittedly barely discernible, between Tupac’s misfit-slash-political stance and Soulja Boy’s ... ... Pretty Boy Swag. As far-fetched as that may sound, to me, the only difference between Mr. Shakur and Mr. Tellem is, very simply, mindful engagement from someone like a Dr. Mutulu Shakur.

It is here where ElectricLadyLike’s meditations on all things remixed, remade and reinvented become a launching point, for me, for clarity and understanding; and instructive for the kind of engagement that needs to take place. She writes:

/////
There is a certain bravado associated with our generation (possibly as a result of hip-hop or maybe even what influences hip-hop?). Nonetheless, our generation posits itself in this self-made framework, almost like the parent-less child who has raised itself.

One of the most important things is that we went from playing instruments to trying to make music without them. This might seem obvious and simplistic and yet much of humanity has, since the beginning of time, created music with instruments. Without instruments, something is missing. Now of course (as mentioned above) the "remix" is still a wonderful thing, the sampling and the re-creation of the original. But in that process, the new creator is STILL missing the initial essence of MAKING the music him or herself. That process: the learning, the practice, the improvisation, the repetition. And not to mention the patience, the humility, the knowing what you DON'T know...the hanging back until you are good enough to enter the cipher or jam session and play your part (literally). THAT is a powerful journey and it can't be underestimated. While it is an analogy, I think it truly gets at the heart of the matter in regards to study, scholarship, publication and playing definitive roles in historicizing our experiences. (source)
/////

I wonder what lessons would Tupac have had for Soulja Boy? And how would it differ or cleave to the lessons his mother, Afeni Shakur, had for him, not yet born, as a political prisoner?

"Forgive us our mistakes because mostly they were mistakes which were made out of blind ignorance (sometimes arrogance). Judge us with empathy for we were (are) idealists and sometimes we're young and foolish."

You get the sense that in the words she wrote to the child in her womb that it wasn’t necessarily meant for Tupac specifically, but rather for all of her figurative descendants -– the Beloveds -- who would become embattled keepers of the “Juice.”

And for nostalgia’s sake:

"The Wire was not a story about America, it's about the America that got left behind" / A talk with David Simon

2011-04-14T12:01:00.036-04:00

Are the “places in our cities where most people fear to tread” also places where it is possible to find “ground to stand on”, “indomitable will” and nobility? Is it possible to re-wire and so redeem these abandoned and fractured communities?

“At best, our metropolises are the ultimate aspiration of community, the repository for every myth and hope of people clinging to the side of the pyramid that is capitalism. At worst, our cities—or those places in our cities where most of us fear to tread—are vessels for the darkest contradictions and most brutal competitions that underlie the way we actually live together, or fail to live together”.
-David Simon

“I was stunned... An affirmation of my presence in the world that would hold me up and give me ground to stand on… I saw behind the seeming despair and emptiness of their lives a force of life, and an indomitable will that linked to their historical precedents became noble in a place where nobility wasn’t supposed to exist”
-August Wilson

Most of what is talked about in the interview is not brand new, but it reminded me of some of the comments in our conversation on the "black creative class" that sought to 1) acknowledge the creative power of the black lower class and 2) find ways to engage all economic classes in the black community in order to bridge the gaps.

Another question that arose in mind is the role of art within these points.

The Wire has been called "social science-fiction". Does the role of art extend beyond that of reflector and/or commentator or does the responsibility then transfer to the audience? I tend to think that it's a shared role that oscillates back and forth between creation, commentary, analysis and action. With that said, that oscillation is sometimes easier said than done.

Below is the excerpt from the 2009 interview Bill Moyers conducted with Simon. The interview re-iterates some of the main elements that made The Wire such a valuable, illuminating drama in our time. And it's also timely considering all the happenings in Washington (and other states) right now surrounding budget reform, labor and class:

/////
Simon: "The drug war is war on the underclass now. That’s all it is. It has no other meaning.

"You know, a guy coming out of addiction at thirty, thirty-five, because it often takes to that age, he often got into addiction with a string of problems, some of which were interpersonal and personal, and some of which were systemic. These really are the excess people in America. Our economy doesn’t need them—we don’t need 10 or 15 percent of our population. And certainly the ones who are undereducated, who have been ill-served by the inner-city school system, who have been unprepared for the technocracy of the modern economy, we pretend to need them. We pretend to educate the kids. We pretend that we’re actually including them in the American ideal, but we’re not. And they’re not foolish. They get it. They understand that the only viable economic base in their neighborhoods is this multibillion-dollar drug trade.[...]

"One of the themes of The Wire really was that statistics will always lie. Statistics can be made to say anything. You show me anything that depicts institutional progress in America: school test scores, crime stats, arrest reports, anything that a politician can run on, anything that somebody can get a promotion on, and as soon as you invent that statistical category, fifty people in that institution will be at work trying to figure out a way to make it look as if progress is actually occurring when actually no progress is.[...]

"Certainly the underclass. There’s a reason they are the underclass. We’re in an era when you don’t need as much mass labor; we are not a manufacturing base. People who built stuff, their lives had some meaning and value because the factories were open. You don’t need them anymore. Unions and working people are completely abandoned by this economic culture, and, you know, that’s heartbreaking to me. I’ve been a union member my whole life and I guess I belong to a little gilded union now. A gilded guild.[...]"

Moyers: "So is this what you mean when you say The Wire is dissent?"

Simon: "Yes. It is dissent. It is saying, “We no longer buy these false ideologies. And the false motifs you have of American life.” I look at this and I think to myself, if only you stand up and say, “I’m not going to be lied to anymore,” that’s a victory on some level, that’s a beginning of a dynamic. Can change happen? Yes. But things have to get a lot worse."

(source)
/////

Video: David Simon on Bill Moyers Journal, 2009

Related: Baltimore police commissioner criticizes The Wire and David Simon responds

Live from planet art / Rare live work videos of Augusta Savage (sculptor), Aaron Douglas (painter), James Latimer Allen (photographer), Richmond Barthe (sculptor) and Palmer Hayden (painter)

2011-04-13T12:01:00.003-04:00

Augusta Savage, born Augusta Christine Fells (February 29, 1892 March 26, 1962) was an African-American sculptor associated with the Harlem Renaissance. She was also a teacher and her studio was important to the careers of a rising generation of artists who would become nationally known. She worked for equal rights for African Americans in the arts.

Aaron Douglas (May 26, 1898 February 3, 1979) was an African American painter and a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance.

James Latimer Allen (1907-1977) grew up in New York City during the Harlem renaissance of black culture. At the age of 16, he began an apprenticeship in photography. In 1927, Allen submitted his work for exhibition, gaining recognition among Harlem's cultural leaders and the Harmon Foundation. Allen photographed exhibition installations and individual artworks for the Harmon Foundation, and portraits of artists at work in the Harlem Community Art Center.

James Richmond Barthé (January 28, 1901 - March 5, 1989) was an African American sculptor known for his many public works, including the Toussaint LOuverture Monument in Port-au-Prince, Haiti and a sculpture of Rose McClendon for Frank Lloyd Wrights Fallingwater House. Barthe once said that all my life I have be interested in trying to capture the spiritual quality I see and feel in people, and I feel that the human figure as God made it, is the best means of expressing this spirit in man.

Palmer C. Hayden (January 15, 1890 – February 18, 1973) was an African American painter. He painted in both oils and watercolors, and was a prolific artist of his era. Much of Hayden's influences came from the environment around him. He enjoyed painting, and used his time in Paris for inspiration. Much of Hayden’s work after Paris focused on the African American experience. He tried to capture rural life as well as urban backgrounds in New York City. Many of these urban paintings were centered in Harlem.

Haile Gerima and The Maroons Project

2011-04-06T12:01:00.002-04:00

Creative statement: "The story of Maroon communities in the Americas is one of the most important and fascinating chapters in the history of New World societies. However, it is a story that is not well known because it has received neither scholarly nor popular examination. Historical omissions of this kind marginalize the contributions of African people in the design and growth of the Americas and widen the chasm between well-meaning people of all ethnicities.

The Maroons Project aims to unearth and remember evidence of the African response to slavery and coerced labor in the Americas and to restore this most important story to its proper place in world history.

Documented from an alternative perspective - grounded in the voices of historians, archaeologists, scholars, and Maroon descendants – The Maroons Project aims to bridge the gap between history and the future of contemporary race relations.

Using film, digital, broadcast and print media, The Maroons Project will share the results of almost two decades of research with mainstream audiences, educational and cultural institutions around the world.

Sankofa is an Akan word that means, "We must go back and reclaim our past so we can move forward; so we understand why and how we came to be who we are today."

It was in the spirit of reclaiming the past that the powerful film Sankofa was released in 1993. The depth of research and overwhelming community response to the film inspired the filmmakers, Haile Gerima and Shirikiana Aina, to go even further in unearthing the history of African resistance during the period of bondage. Over the last several years, The Maroon Project has taken shape, continuing on in the legacy of Sankofa.

The Maroon Project directly addresses many of the questions raised after the screening of the film, Sankofa:

Did Africans resist enslavement?

Who were the Maroons?

What was the life they lived?

What lessons can we learn?

Why haven’t I heard about them before?

What are the contemporary manifestations of Maroon culture?

Although the Maroon phenomenon in the Caribbean is quite known, mainstream media has yet to produce, from a North American perspective, an in-depth documentation of Maroon history during slavery that reflects Africans as agents of their own liberation and creators of their own free societies.

{Gerima at a panel discussing his recent film, "Teza"}

The prevailing African American history currently taught in the U.S. tends to emphasize Africans receiving freedom solely through benefactors in the white community, leaving the story incomplete. While dedicated abolitionists and members of the Underground Railroad did aid in the struggle for freedom, it was the African spirit of resistance that inspired them to take an active role in the struggle. It is not only demeaning to ignore the leadership role Africans played in actualizing their own freedom, but it also perpetuates divisiveness in contemporary race relations. For someone cannot be given their freedom, and it still be called freedom.

Much is needed to do justice to the true story of Africans in the U.S., and The Maroon Project offers another turning point through which African American history can advance.

Maroon history offers stirring accounts of courage, a self-determined commitment to freedom and of democratic and multiethnic communities developing in tandem with early European colonial societies right here in the Americas. Yet, documentation of this important history is woefully absent from the media and our educational system. The legacy of the Maroons still lives apart from the larger public awareness of history and culture in the Americas. Your support can help change that.

In our endeavor to honor the struggle of captured Africans who successfully resisted slavery and their descendants, The Maroons Project is seeking participation from every member of the global community that shares a commitment to cultural diversity and accuracy. This grassroots investment initiative gives individuals, foundations and corporations the chance to become involved and support our efforts to document the rich, cultural legacy of the Maroons.

All financial contributions, whether large or small, will play an important role in making The Maroons Project’s filmed works, educational initiatives, digital repository and continued scholarly research possible. With your help, the story of these courageous men and women will live on.

Your support is vital to bringing The Maroon Project to fruition.

"Louis" / Wynton Marsalis' tribute to Louis Armstrong & New Orleans [trailer]

2011-03-18T12:01:00.002-04:00

Creative statement: Shot by Academy Award-winning cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond as a modern re-imagining of early silent film, "Louis" is an homage to Louis Armstrong, Charlie Chaplin, beautiful women and the birth of American music. The grand Storyville bordellos, alleys and cemeteries of 1907 New Orleans provide a backdrop of lust, blood and magic for 6 year old Louis (Anthony Coleman) as he navigates the colorful intricacies of life in the city. Young Louis's dreams of playing the trumpet are interrupted by a chance meeting with a beautiful and vulnerable girl named Grace (Lowry) and her baby, Jasmine. Haley, in a performance reminiscent of the great comic stars of the silent screen, plays the evil Judge Perry who is determined not to let Jasmine's true heritage derail his candidacy for governor.

Pharoahe Monch / "Clap" [short film]

2011-03-15T12:01:00.000-04:00

Creative statement: A 10-minute short film, Pharoahe Monch evokes raw emotions as he brings viewers on a journey of a police raid gone dramatically wrong. "Clap (one day)" is directed by Terence Nance. Original score by Lion's Share Music Group. Starring Gbenga Akinnagbe (The Wire), Kim Howard & Josiah Small.

"A Panther In Africa" / From Kansas City to East Africa: Exiled Black Panther Party Chairman founds community education center in Tanzania [film]

2011-03-14T12:01:00.001-04:00

Amaka points out in the comments that the PBS documentary, "A Panther In Africa" is now on Youtube. The documentary tells the story of former Kansas City Chairman of the Black Panther Party Peter O'Neal and his wife Charlotte and their exile to Tanzania in 1970 after Pete was arrested a year earlier under a new law (that many note was enacted to control the Black Panther Party) restricting the transportation of a gun across state lines.

Check out our past coverage to learn more about the community center the O'Neals founded, the United African Alliance Community Center in Arusha, Tanzania.

At the river I stand / "Black people have to set the temper of the times" [film]

2011-03-10T12:01:00.001-05:00

Here is a visual companion to the ongoing discussion in the Organized Labor & the State Fistfight in Heaven post, where Rob asks: "How far is the distance from Memphis in 1968 and Madison in 2011?"

Description: "At the River I Stand" chronicles the tumultuous events that unfolded over two fateful months in 1968. It began as a local strike by African-American sanitation workers for human dignity and a living wage. The story eventually captured national attention and drew Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to Memphis, along with the assassin who would kill him. The results marked a turning point in the Civil Rights Movement and the national struggle for racial and economic justice."

Watch the full film here for a limited time. Excerpt below.

The Atlanta Way: "If BET were to design a city, it would be Atlanta" [trailer]

2011-02-10T12:01:00.002-05:00

The Atlanta Way, set to release in spring 2011 and directed by King Williams and Ajay Reeves, is the first non-fiction visual investigation analyzing the ripples of urban renewal and gentrification in terms of Atlanta's evolution. Check it.

Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 [trailer]

2011-02-04T12:01:00.000-05:00

A new documentary premiered at the Sundance Film City that showcases newly discovered archival footage from the Black Power movement taken by Swedish journalists between 1967-1975. Danny Glover co-produced the film and spoke about it on Democracy Now. According to a few reviews, the footage is presented mostly from a Swedish perspective, which will be interesting to see how the ideas and the atmosphere are translated from the lens of relative "outsiders".

Men in Love [trailer]

2011-01-27T12:01:00.002-05:00

Film synopsis: "Following a bitter break-up Leo hits the party scene one night to 'get over it'. But after a sexy and unexpected encounter he's forced to face what most men fear: They don't realize they're in love until it's too late."

Looks intriguing. I wonder when and where it will be released.

The Myth of Black Hollywood

2011-01-21T12:01:00.008-05:00

{liberatormagazine.com exclusive feature}

Recently I was listening to some of my old Public Enemy records, tapes and CDs. I can admit that I’m old enough to have purchased all three from a retail store. I came across one of my favorite songs from Fear of a Black Planet:

It’s hard not to be struck by the irony after considering the subsequent career paths of some of the featured artists. Flavor Flav flatly rejects an offer to play a buffoon in this video. Well, we all saw how that turned out:

Ice cube who defiantly says, “Fuck Hollywood!” goes from this:

To this:

A lot can change in 20 years. A lot should change in 20 years. The question we should ask ourselves is: Are things changing for the better? It’s clear that black people have a much larger presence in front of and behind the camera. Tyler Perry, for example, has probably experienced more “success” as a black producer/actor than anyone else in recent memory, but it’s hard not to be disappointed or downright embarrassed by many of his productions.

I had the displeasure of seeing Why Did I Get Married Too at the behest of an avid Tyler Perry supporter and self-proclaimed "Black Hollywood" buff. And while I can’t say I found anything about this movie even mildly interesting or entertaining, it was good in that it served as a catalyst for me to think about the notion of a “Black Hollywood” while I perused her extensive collection of black cinema. There are so many "Blackbuster" movies produced and distributed every year that one might think that black people have truly become a powerful and independent force to be reckoned with in Tinseltown. To the contrary, I would argue that there are no truly autonomous black producers or black production companies in Hollywood. Spike Lee may be as close as we come, but even he has problems financing his projects. I’m still amazed that he was able to get Malcolm X on the big screen. And it should be noted that it made it to the screen, not because of the Warner Bros., which tried to effectively assassinate the project with time restrictions, but because of the contributions of wealthy African Americans including, but not limited to, Bill Cosby, Michael Jordan and Oprah Winfrey.

We definitely have many more culturally influential executives that answer to higher-ups. We have more black producers and production companies helmed by black people (Broderick Johnson of Alcon films and Rob Hardy and Will Packer of Rainforest films spring to mind), but they are still financed by and beholden to those who’ve never had our interests at heart or our humanity in mind. I would go even further in saying that they are beholden to people who actually hate us. One can even see this with a cursory glance at the film projects that many of the most prominent black producers have been involved with: Monster’s Ball, Something New, Precious, etc. In my opinion, these critically-acclaimed and financially successful films are little more than assaults to the psyche of black people. I’m willing to admit that perhaps I’m just being too sensitive here. Maybe no subject is truly taboo anymore. If that’s the case, then please direct me to a big budget (30 million+) and accurate treatment of Nat Turner, the Tulsa Oklahoma terrorist attacks, Denmark Vesey or Toussaint L’Ouverture (Danny Glover has been trying for years).

I’ve stressed the word “accurate” here because, in the handful of relatively mainstream forays into “racially” charged topics (John Singleton’s Rosewood comes to mind), there’s a tendency to balance out negative portrayals of white people with some positive or at least semi-positive protagonists. Like Fox News, the goal is to be “fair and balanced” even at the expense of the truth. The reason why the aforementioned film topics don’t get produced is for fear that they might alienate white people and the dollars they bring in. There is a conscious effort to tread carefully so that we do not offend their delicate sensibilities. We, on the other hand, are given no such consideration. From my point of view, “Black Hollywood” is little more than a front that provides an opportunity for the “educated” and “industrious” among us to receive a tidy profit for themselves and generate a much larger profit for their sponsors by pimping and fetishizing black culture at a level that’s at least on par with the most ignorant, hedonistic rapper you can find.

In addition to the black producers who abide by the blatant racism and double standards practiced in Hollywood, we also have black people who have been designated as the intermediaries between Hollywood and the black community. They are the ones who come out on TV and radio and try to guilt and goad us into seeing a film. You know how it goes: As soon as a mainstream movie comes out featuring a predominantly black cast, we get the siren call from them telling us to support “black films". For me, the major problem isn’t with any particular film or even the savvy albeit morally dubious marketing strategy to drive up sales by drawing on racial solidarity. It is the idea that if we don’t support the latest mainstream films then we should no longer complain about the dearth of quality, black films. In politics, a similar point of view is encapsulated by the saying: “If you don’t vote, then don’t complain.” It seems to escape some that perhaps you are complaining when you don’t vote. Perhaps some of us are not willing to endorse or cosign anything simply because it’s different from nothing. From my perspective, the promulgation of the idea that we should support terrible films so that we may eventually complain about terrible films doesn’t make much sense and only serves to highlight our ineffectual state.

Undoubtedly, Tyler Perry is responsible for a spate of terrible films and television shows, but I don’t place the blame squarely on him. I place a lion's share of the blame on a hyper-capitalist society that nurtured us, gave him a platform, and purposely ignores those who are unwilling to betray a more complicated, complete and uncompromising view for a few dollars. Tyler Perry is an easy target for critics because of his brand of melodrama, his penchant for cross-dressing, his blatant color-coding and his promotion of religion and prayer as a panacea.

Still, I admire Tyler Perry for his tenacity. His determination to make something out of nothing has been a hallmark of our existence in this country; but I also understand how this kind of drive can be subverted by money or other powerful motivators. What can I say to someone like Perry who went from living in his car to living in a mansion? I wasn’t there to help him out of his car and into a home. It was his own work, coupled with those who recognized that they could exploit it (and us) that moved him up the socioeconomic ladder. Consequently, my criticism would probably ring hollow to him if he were to hear it. To attack Perry on the quality of his films and television shows is tantamount to saying, “Could you please make better movies and television shows and risk going back to the streets?”

By the time you reach his level, there’s absolutely nothing you can say to him. The same is true with most of our mainstream politicians, athletes, entertainers and actors. We live in a capitalistic society that demands results even at the expense of all ethical considerations. I know we sometimes like to pretend that it isn’t the case, but young people are picking up this message at increasingly earlier ages. This explains why Montana Fishburne sees a sex tape as a spring board to fortune and fame. It explains why so many mainstream rap videos and films are filled with people willing to trade tales of sex, material excess and violence for profit and why so many young people are willing to “buy” what they’re selling.

Blacks are, to the extent that they are willing to play their position, allowed to do so. In the final analysis, there is little difference to me between Tyler Perry, Oprah Winfrey, 50 Cent, Ice Cube or similarly situated individuals. They all display an extreme drive for fortune and fame even if it requires a callous disregard to everything or everyone else in the communities from whence they came. And I maintain this position regardless of whatever token contributions they’ve given to charities. Donating to a Negro scholarship fund does not offset decades of corporate-sponsored exploitation. Their personal stories may be very different, but the conclusions they eventually reach (even if it takes 20 years) are remarkably similar in that they all show an almost complete lack of progressive politics.

The Hollywood corporate machine effectively uses these celebrities to fool us into believing that any movement is a movement in the right direction. Their role in promoting so many “black firsts” and "black faces" (from athletes to award-winners to presidents) has led many of us to confuse pioneers with revolutionaries. They have done a fantastic job in making some of us believe in the power of “Black Hollywood.” And for that, they deserve the Oscar.

Maxwell Addae + Camus' L'Etranger = "Man in the Glass Case" [short film]

2011-01-19T12:01:00.011-05:00

"The Man in the Glass Case" is an absurdist film offering by Maxwell Addae, a young writer/director based in Los Angeles.

Addae's Synopsis: "My short is about a very diligent warehouse employee named James who has a unique perspective about life. James sees most things in life as absurd, or pointless and he really operates on a essential needs basis. Food, sleep, companionship, work, etc. He does this so naturally and honestly that when he commits a violent act against a co-worker, he truly has no concept of its significance. This causes trouble when he is confronted and challenged about his morality by his employer. Albert Camus’ beautifully told story The Stranger (L’Etranger) was the inspiration behind my film and helped set the film’s tone." Run time: 19:58

"The Colour of Beauty" / Behind the scenes w/ director Elizabeth St. Philip

2011-01-15T12:01:00.002-05:00

After taking a look at "The Colour of Beauty" documentary here, check out this short interview with the doc's director, Elizabeth St. Philip, as she gives her take on how the fashion industry defines the concept of beauty by providing only marginal exposure for non-white models. A full-time journalist, she also describes what she considers to be the differences and similarities between making a documentary and producing TV news in bringing vital and compelling stories to an audience. Further down in the interview, St. Philip compares the themes of this film with those of her other documentary, "Breakin’ In," which chronicled the challenges faced by black women trying to launch their careers in the hip-hop music video industry. Both films examine the roles of women of color within mass media, but the fashion and music industries are defined by different forces.

{The Face of the Fashion Industry}

{The Color of Our Values}

{Journalist vs. Doc Filmmaker}

{Breakin' In vs. The Colour of Beauty}

The promotional trailer for every Oscar-winning movie ever made

2011-01-13T12:01:00.005-05:00

And so, it is with great pleasure that I share this trailer. It is quite witty, hilarious even, and it touches on just how formulaic art can be. Funny too, because I'm sure we can add or subtract elements and come up with an even more precise formula, something that projects the fine-tuned aspect of the American machine. Or maybe even think of how the same concept can be applied to the Emmys, the Grammys, and all other awards recognizing art as produced in America. Special thanks to Atlanta Post contributing writer Charing Ball for sharing this. I find it to be satirical and poignant.