Film Screenings / Programs / Series
BLACKOUT 1973
January 10 – January 20
1973 was the year of major strikes by Black workers in South Africa, Guinea-Bissau’s declaration of independence from Portuguese colonialism, and the formation of the National Black Feminist Organization in the United States. There, Black Power rose in a tide of political will, militancy, cultural recovery, institution-building, and demands for economic and social transformation through organizations such as the Black Panther Party (BPP), Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Black Liberation Army (BLA), and Nation of Islam. It converged with Black Nationalism, Afrocentrism, and the global currents of Pan-Africanism, as the inheritors of the Civil Rights Movement forged connections with African liberation struggles.
As a period of Black cinematic history, the 1970s were explosive. In the U.S., the East Coast produced a new branch of independent filmmaking – a collaborative scene of experimental and documentary work based in New York, combining creative force and socio-economic commentary, as well as crossing over into TV and theater. On the West Coast, the L.A. Rebellion took on racism, sexism, and class antagonism as an anti-colonial, internationalist project, foregrounding an expansive look at Black life that was all at once combative, sensitive, ideologically forceful, and aesthetically imaginative. They were operating in a critical relationship with the decade’s dominant cinematic language of Blaxploitation, which negotiated the radical and heterogenous Black political energy of the time with Hollywood’s profit-driven pressures, yielding a tricky but massively popular volume of films. The 1970s were also a prolific decade of rewriting history, innovating hybrid forms and genres, challenging colonialism, and fusing indigenous oral traditions and languages in African Cinema.
Although it may not have been the year with the largest output, 1973 offers a substantial and multifaceted cross-section of the decade, a Black lens on the politics and culture of a period of fractures, upheavals, and transformations as we enter another phase of uncertainty and possibility.
Guest-programmed by Yasmina Price, who wrote the introduction above.
Special thanks to Brian Belovarac (Janus Films); Chris Chouinard (Park Circus); Merawi Gerima; Bob Hunter (Icarus Films); Susan Lord (Vulnerable Media Lab); Maritu Mekonnen; Jake Perlin (The Film Desk); George Schmalz (Kino Lorber); and Biza Vianna (Centro Afro Carioca de Cinema Zózimo Bulbul).
Upcoming Screenings
-
Djibril Diop Mambéty
TOUKI BOUKI
January 10 at 7:00 PM
January 13 at 9:15 PM
January 19 at 6:15 PM
-
Bill Gunn
GANJA & HESS
January 10 at 9:15 PM
January 14 at 9:00 PM
January 15 at 6:30 PM
-
Mel Stuart
WATTSTAX
January 11 at 6:30 PM
January 18 at 8:45 PM
January 20 at 6:30 PM
-
Jack Hill
COFFY
January 11 at 9:00 PM
January 16 at 6:45 PM
January 20 at 9:15 PM
-
St. Clair Bourne
LET THE CHURCH SAY AMEN!
January 12 at 5:30 PM
January 14 at 7:00 PM
January 15 at 9:15 PM
-
BLACKOUT SHORT FILM PGM
January 12 at 7:30 PM
January 16 at 9:00 PM
-
Ousmane Sembène
XALA
January 13 at 6:30 PM
January 18 at 5:45 PM
January 19 at 8:30 PM
