Film
Mass of Images: Black Power Era Experimenta
- 7PM
The boundary-breaking filmmakers of the Black Power era not only introduced revolutionary politics to cinema—they also invented revolutionary new forms to express themselves as illustrated by this selection of works that are as formally daring as they are culturally subversive.
Dir. Julie Dash
1975, 7min, 16mm
A dance film set to the music of Nina Simone; her breakthrough work.
16mm restored print courtesy of the UCLA Film & Television Archive.
Dir. Barbara McCulloch
1979, 5min, Digital
A woman cleanses both herself and the Los Angeles wasteland that surrounds her in this richly symbolic work inspired by Afro-diasporic ceremonies and folklore.
Dir. Edward Owens
1967, 6min, Digital
Though he made only a handful of films (all before the age of twenty-one), the works of queer avant-gardist Edward Owens display a virtuoso formal mastery, as seen in this portrait of his mother and her friends, which blends pop music with the compositional style of a Renaissance painting.
Dir. Ulysses S Jenkins
1978, 4min, Digital
Performance artist and video visionary Ulysses S. Jenkins lays bare the psychic trauma wrought by the media’s stereotyped portrayal of African-Americans.
Dir. Ulysses S Jenkins
1981, 15min, Digital
Jenkins continues his exploration of mass media saturation in this Dadaist kaleidoscope of VHS-recorded TV flotsam, menacing lawnmowers, footballs, and the artist’s waggling butt.
Dir. Ulysses S Jenkins
1979, 24min, Digital
Jenkins—alongside fellow Otis Art Institute student Kerry James Marshall—stages a surrealist minstrel show in this dream-vision exploration of the history of black representation.
Dir. Jamaa Fanaka
1972, 16min, Digital
Shot on 8mm, the first film by iconoclastic LA Rebellion auteur Jamaa Fanaka (Penitentiary) is a raw take on the Faust legend, starring the director as a heroin junkie.
Dir. Betye Saar
1971, 2min, Digital
Lasting 79 seconds and costing under $100 to make, Saar’s film Colored Spade is an assemblage of derogatory images gradually replaced with depictions of African-American power and solidarity.
Go to the movies just once a month and a BAM membership pays for itself.
Charles Burnett’s American neorealist landmark with shorts by fellow LA Rebellion members.
An exhilarating lost classic and one of the all-time great jazz films.
A bracing view of Angola’s anti-colonialist struggle and a rousing call to revolution.