Amir George – Meditation on An Archive
During filmmaker/curator Amir George‘s research residency at the Black Film Center/Archive this week, he will present a short film program at The Media School, Meditation on An Archive. The midday program takes place at the Franklin Hall screening room (304) on Wednesday, April 4, 11:30am-12:45pm.
Born and bred in Chicago. Amir George creates work for the cinema, installation, and live performance. Amir’s motion picture work has been screened at film festivals including Ann Arbor Film Festival, Trinidad and Tobago International Film Festival, BlackStar Film Festival, Afrikana Film Festival, and Chicago Underground Film Festival as well as cultural institutions, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, Anthology Film Archives, Glasgow School of Art, Museum of Contemporary Arts, Los Angeles, and Museum of Contemporary Arts Detroit. Amir has organized cinematic themed symposiums at Cooper Union, and Talbot Rice Gallery at the University of Edinburgh. Amir has curated exhibitions at Transmission Gallery Scotland, and Silent Funny Chicago. In addition to founding The Cinema Culture, a grassroots film programming organization, Amir is the co-founder of Black Radical Imagination, a touring experimental short film series with Erin Christovale.
Black Film Nontheatrical: Shani Miller and Golden State Mutual
For the final Spring 2018 event in the Black Film Nontheatrical series, the BFC/A and the IU Libraries Moving Image Archive welcome Shani Miller, Metadata and Digital Processing Coordinator, UCLA Library Ethnomusicology Archive.’
Miller will be discussing materials from the Haynes Foundation-funded Golden State Mutual (GSM) Audiovisual Digitization and Access Project at the UCLA Library for which she was project coordinator. The GSM Life Insurance Company was founded in Los Angeles in response to discriminatory practices that restricted the ability of Black residents to purchase insurance. Over its nearly 85 years of business, GSM was committed to self-documentation, building a rich collection of photographs, sound recordings, and moving images.
Miller’s presentation takes place at the IU Libraries Screening Room (Wells 048) on Thursday, April 26, at 2:15pm.
BFC/A Visiting Research Fellowships
The inaugural cycle of the BFC/A Visiting Research Fellowship program was met with an encouraging response by outstanding applications from around the globe. Our five inaugural fellows were selected in March and will be visiting the archives over the course of the year. They are:
- Jerome Dent, PhD Candidate, University of Rochester
- Yasmin Desouki, Artistic Director, Cimatheque – Alternative Film Centre, Cairo, Egypt
- Nicholas Forster, PhD Candidate, Yale University
- Katherine Fusco, Assistant Professor, University of Nevada, Reno
- Steve Ryfle, Independent Researcher, Los Angeles
We will be sharing more information soon about our inaugural fellows through The Media School’s Communications Office. The second 2018 cycle of visiting research fellowships is now open for applications. The deadline for this cycle is August 15, 2018, with notifications to be made by September 15, 2018.
Remembering Mrs. Alice B. Russell Micheaux
Through the efforts of BFC/A director Terri Francis, independent silent film historian Lina Accurso, and a generous community of donors, arrangements are in place to set a memorial headstone at the unmarked grave of Mrs. Alice B. Russell Micheaux in 2018.
On April 11, 2018, at 11:00 am, a group will gather at the site in Greenwood Union Cemetery, Rye, NY, for for a meaningful remembrance of Mrs. Micheaux’s life and her vital contributions to early African American cinema as a producer, actress, script supervisor, and spouse to Oscar Micheaux. Please join us and share the event information linked here.
We plan to honor Mrs. Micheaux with a floral arrangement, music from Jasmine Muhammad, and a blessing from Rev. Martha Cruz, a member of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, local to Rye. Due to the long New York winter, we unfortunately will not be able to install and dedicate the rose marker on this occasion, but it will be in place by the anniversary of Mrs. Micheaux’s birth on June 30.
Black Camera 9.1 Now Available
The latest issue of Black Camera is now available from the Indiana University Press and online through JSTOR and Project MUSE.
The current issue includes:
- Articles by Amadou Fofana and Bruce S. Hall; Albert Fu and Martin Murray; Reighan Gillam; and Olivia Landry;
- Michael T. Martin and Yalie Kamara in conversation with Dany Laferrière;
- A Close-up on Beyoncé with an introduction by Stephanie Li and articles by Eric Harvey, Emily J. Lordi, Mako Fitts Ward, Marquis Bey, Dinah Holtzman, Alicia Wallace, Aisha Durham, and Tiffany E. Barber;
- An Archival Spotlight by BFC/A archivist Ronda L. Sewald on Phil Moore; And, a FESPACO 2017 Dossier, Film Review, and more.
Coffee & Donuts
Thursday, April 26, from 9:00-11:00 am will be your last chance this semester to join us here at the BFC/A for Coffee & Donuts with our director and staff. We’ll be back for your refills in the fall.
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