Film
Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One + Shorts
- 7PM
Introduction by Ina Archer (Media Conservation & Digitization Assistant, Smithsonian National Museum of African-American History & Culture)
Dir. William Greaves
1968, 75min, 35mm
Documentarian William Greaves’ meta-cinematic mind-bender lets loose three film crews in Central Park with minimal instructions, leaving them to draw their own conclusions about the director’s intentions (and competence). The resulting film-within-a-film-within-a-film is a one-of-a-kind counterculture masterpiece that “without being in any overt sense ‘about race,’…is mischievously eloquent on the struggles of the black artist in a supposedly liberal society” (A. O. Scott, The New York Times).
Dir. William Greaves
1970, 5min
Segment from the NET-produced program showing martial arts instructors teaching a class while a small jazz band plays. With karate master Ron Taganashi.
Dir. Hortense “Tee” Beveridge
c. 1960s, 9 min
A daringly experimental narrative made with members of the Brownsville Youth Center.
Go to the movies just once a month and a BAM membership pays for itself.
Robert Downey Sr.’s gag-a-minute gonzo satire of advertising and 60s racial politics.
A rare, powerfully propulsive call to arms made in collaboration with Malcolm X.
A stunning mix of vérité authenticity, densely stylized surrealism, and radical agitprop.