A BAMcinématek series, “One Way or Another: Black Women’s Cinema 1970-1991,” reminds us that the history of movies is also a history of struggle for equality.
“There are many stories to be told and many battles to begin.”
This determined cry from the heart — this battle cry — arrives at the end of Julie Dash’s 1982 short film, “Illusions,” about a black woman working in the old Hollywood. It also helps sum up the importance of the BAMcinématek series “One Way or Another: Black Women’s Cinema 1970-1991.”
The program includes:
Daughters of the Dust (dir. Julie Dash)
Steeped in the language, culture, and customs of the Gullah people, Daughters of the Dust is a dreamy, at times mystic, celebration of folk traditions and black womanhood. Its sumptuous images (which were a widely cited key influence on Beyoncé’s visual album Lemonade) shimmer anew in this ravishing restoration.
Losing Ground (dir. Kathleen Collins)
A married couple experience a reawakening on a summer idyll in upstate New York. This revelatory comedic drama is one of the first films to explore sexuality from the perspective of a black female director.
I Be Done Was Is (Debra Robinson)
Director Debra Robinson profiles four black female comedians—Alice Arthur, Rhonda Hansome, Jane Galvin Lewis, and Marsha Warfield—who use humor to illuminate the experiences of African-American women.
Julie Dash’s shorts including:
“Standing At The Scratch Line” - A look at the history of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.
“Four Women” - A dance film set to the music of Nina Simone.
“Illusions” - Which explores African-American representation in 1940s Hollywood via the story of a black studio executive passing as white.
“Praise House” - A performance piece made with Urban Bush Women founder Jawole Willa Jo Zollar.
Zora Is My Name! (dir. Neema Barnette)
The great Ruby Dee scripted and stars in this tribute to visionary writer and folklorist Zora Neale Hurston.
Visions of the Spirit: A Portrait of Alice Walker (dir. Elena Featherstone)
Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Alice Walker reflects on her life, career, and worldview. Filmed over the course of three years at the writer’s home and on the set of the film adaptation of her novel The Color Purple, it offers essential insight into the experiences that shaped her perspective as an outspoken black feminist.
Othello (dir. Liz White)
Created by an entirely black cast and crew, Liz White’s (who founded her own company in Martha’s Vineyard in 1946) rarely screened adaptation of Shakespeare’s tragedy offers incisive commentary on the play’s racial dimensions.
Sky Captain (dir. Neema Barnette)
Neema Barnette’s hip-hop-infused South Bronx fantasy that tackles the issue of teen suicide with a surplus of cinematic imagination.
A Dream Is What You Wake Up From (dir. Larry Bullard, Carolyn Johnson)
The everyday lives of three Black families with different approaches to their struggle for survival in the United States are represented through a mix of fiction and documentary scenes, a docudrama style inspired by the work of Cuban filmmaker Sara Gómez.
One Way Or Another (De Cierta Manera) (dir. Sara Gomez)
Afro-Cuban filmmaker Sara Gómez’s radical narrative-documentary hybrid (the first feature directed by a Cuban woman) delivers a complex critique of regressive machismo in Castro’s Cuba.
Namibia: Independence Now! (dir. Pearl Bowser, Christine Choy)
This documentary is an essential record of the role that women played in the struggle for South-West African liberation. Directors Pearl Bowser and Christine Choy record life inside refugee camps in Zambia and Angola, where Namibian exiles—in particular women—work to free their country from South African rule.
And more!