(RE)FOCUS: Black America 1968/2018
(RE)FOCUS: Black America 1968/2018 revisits and re-examines the content, archival material, and public reception of FOCUS: Black America, a year-long program of screenings, lectures, and courses that Indiana University administrators, faculty, and students organized in 1968.
Representatives from University Archives, the Moving Image Archive, and the Neal- Marshall Black Cultural Center will showcase materials related to the original event in an open-door archive, screening and discussion. This project is supported by Indiana Humanities in cooperation with the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Michael Schultz series
Wednesday Nov. 7 at 6:30pm we screen Young, Gifted and Black in the IULMIA Screening Room, Wells 048. Other screenings held at IU Cinema: Cooley High, Krush Groove, and Car Wash. For more information click here and here.
Born in Milwaukee, Michael Schultz, is a prolific and award-winning filmmaker. Following his debut as a stage manager for The Old Glory (1964), which featured Roscoe Lee Browne in the role of Babu, Schultz went on to manage and direct at least 20 other theatrical performances from 1964–74. In 1972, he began working in television and film, directing both Together for Days (aka Black Cream) and To Be Young, Gifted, and Black, a biography on Lorraine Hansberry. These were followed by Honey Baby, Honey Baby (1974) and then a string of hit films, including Cooley High (1975), Car Wash (1976), The Last Dragon (1985), Krush Groove (1985), and many others. He has also worked on over 40 television series such as Starsky and Hutch, Ally McBeal, and Black-ish. Schultz was inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame (BFHFI) in 1991. His other awards include the Cannes Technical Grand Prize for Car Wash and Best Film from the American Black Film Festival and Black Reel Awards for Woman Thou Art Loosed (2004).
The series is sponsored by the Black Film Center/Archive; IU Office of the Bicentennial; Archives of African American Music and Culture; The Media School; Office of the Vice President for Diversity, Equity, and Multicultural Affairs; and IU Cinema.
Mr. Schultz’s visit is also part of the fall 2018 Media School Speaker Series.
Before Representation
Before Representation is a three-part lecture series on race and media. Since discussions on this topic typically feature the metrics of stereotypes, actors, and directors we wondered instead what happens before representation? How do manufacturers and marketers of “flesh” colored products picture their customers? What do we talk about when we talk about race? Where do archives and libraries fit into the project of greater literacy on the relationship between race and media? Our visiting scholars are communications professor Dr. Lorna Roth, sociologist Dr. Crystal Fleming, and historian Dr. Melanie Chambliss. They each take a different disciplinary approach to unveiling the often invisible and unspoken racialized assumptions that determine how we look at ourselves and each other, shaping our knowledge of the world.
Dr. Chambliss’s lecture takes place on November 13 at 1PM in Hodge Hall 2083.
Mystery Screening
September 20, 2018 the BFC/A held a Mystery Screening in partnership with #DirectedbyWomen and IU Libraries Moving Image Archive. The content of the screening was not announced beforehand.
The Mystery Guest was Crystal Z. Campbell, a US artist and writer hailing from Oklahoma. Campbell’s work in analog film, video, sound, performance, sculpture, drawing, painting, photography, and community projects are excavations of unsettled historical narratives.
Campbell uses art as a tool for agency, social transformation, and time-travel. IULMIA screened her 2017 film Go-Rilla Means War. The film is a relic of gentrification, and highlights the complex intersections of development, cultural preservation, and erasure in the form of an intricately woven parable and celluloid frames weathered by decades of urban neglect.
Read Guest Post by Essence London, Indiana Review Editor-in-Chief, for a reflection on Go-Rilla Means War and Bloomington’s own unsettled histories on the BFC/A Blog.
BFCA Fellow Jerome Dent
Jerome Dent, PhD Candidate, University of Rochester. Jerome Dent is a California native, but his academic studies have brought him to locations all across the United States. He has a B.A. in Comparative Literature and African American Studies from the University of California, as well as two M.A.’s in Humanities and Visual and Cultural Studies, from Mount St. Mary’s University and the University of Rochester respectively. His dissertation is focused on the figure of blackness and how it is represented in contemporary fiction films. Mr. Dent visited the BFC/A as one of our inaugural visiting research fellows. Read Jerome’s research journal here.
The Last Dragon at The Starlite
Enjoy the above scenes from our summer screening: The Last Dragon at The Starlite Drive-in Theater on August 15. The film follows a martial artist (Taimak Guarriello) looking for the next level. A rare chance to experience a martial arts musical, complete with Motown soundtrack! The screening was part of the The Black Film Center/Archive and IU Cinema’s celebration of Michael Schultz’s 50-year career with a film series: Young, Gifted and Black.
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