Alfreda’s Cinema presents heartbreak church (on bell hooks)

bell hooks taught us to love better—that love is a verb. she named what went on unspoken in our homes for generations. during the lockdown, and notably after her transition in 2021, her 2001 release, all about love, resurfaced as a response to the loss of touch, connection, and community. collective discourse, temporary or not, took shape in the darkness of those days swept by grimness and grief. post after post on social media immortalized bell's text as an activation of love, what it is, and as the foundation for a healthier society to emerge. using interviews and short films that embody healing through love—grace, clarity, justice, honesty, spirituality, values, greed, community, mutuality, romance, loss, healing, and destiny—we visualize this transformative text to screen in our program, heartbreak church.

alfreda's cinema begins its monthly partnership with BAM with heartbreak church, visualizing bell's theory as noted by Dr. Ayanna Dozier as an "insurrectionist possibility to radicalize the body to practice love." joining us in conversation is writer and film professor, Dr. Racquel Gates.

Let's Make Love and Listen to Death From Above (2023)
Dir. Ayanna Dozier, 6min 

So Many Things to Consider (1996) 
Dir. Sandye Wilson, 10min

Transmagnifican Dambamuality (1976)
Dir. Ronald Grey, 8min

Cycles (1989)
Dir. Zeinabu Irene Davis, 16min

A Word on Words: bell hooks (1999)
Nashville Public Television, 27min

Speaking Freely: bell hooks (2002)
Nashville Public Television, 27min

alfreda's cinema founder Melissa Lyde has guest-programmed at BAM for many years, and will continue her efforts for Black/POC sacred space in film exhibition with this sequence of exclusive monthly screenings, centering video art that highlights the richness of our culture.