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Job Announcement: Director, Black Film Center & Archive
The Media School at Indiana University looks to hire the next director of its Black Film Center & Archive (BFCA), the only university-based archival repository in the world that is wholly dedicated to collecting, preserving, and making available historically and culturally significant films by and about Black people. For more than 40 years, the BFCA has promoted scholarship on Black film and serves as an open resource for scholars, researchers, students and the general public. In recent years, the BFCA has worked closely with the IU Cinema, the Eskenazi Museum of Art, the IU Library’s Moving Image Archive, the journal Black Camera, the Lilly Library (housing the papers of African writers and filmmakers such as Ousmane Sembene and Ngugi wa Thiong’o) and others on programming, curatorial and scholarly activities, including undergraduate and graduate instruction. On the international level, the BFCA regularly partners with FESPACO, the most prestigious film festival based in Ouagadougou and dedicated to the cinematic works of African and diasporic filmmakers and the June Givanni Pan-African cinema archive (UK). It now houses a FESPACO collection and the recently acquired personal papers of Paulin Soumanou Vieyra, a pioneer of African cinema.
Applications should include a cover letter addressing fit for the position and a vision for the BFCA, curriculum vitae, teaching statement, diversity statement outlining contributions and commitment to equity and inclusion, and a list of academic or professional references. Applications will be reviewed immediately, and the position will remain open until filled. Applications received by October 28, 2022 will be given full consideration. Interested candidates should submit application materials online at https://indiana.peopleadmin.com/postings/13567. The expected start date is August 1, 2023.
Indiana University is an equal employment and affirmative action employer and a provider of ADA services. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment based on individual qualifications. Indiana University prohibits discrimination based on age, ethnicity, color, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, national origin, disability status or protected veteran status. Diversity and inclusion are central to The Media School’s mission.
Indiana University is located in Bloomington, Indiana, a vibrant city full of cultural life, diversity, and opportunity, with a population of some 85,000 people from all over the world. It is not uncommon to bump into world-renowned poets, professors, musicians, and researchers at one of the city’s notable local restaurants, cafes, or breweries. IU Bloomington is home to a lively arts community, with independent local theaters, university orchestras, and one of the best university cinemas—Indiana University Cinema—in the country. Other relevant resources on campus include the Center for Research on Race and Ethnicity in Society, Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies, Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center, and the African American Arts Institute.
Questions regarding this position or the application process should be directed to the chair of the search committee, Associate Professor Akinwumi Adesokan, at adesokan@indiana.edu. See more about The Media School at https://mediaschool.indiana.edu/index.html.
Fall 2022 Open House at the Black Film Center & Archive
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We’ve restarted offering open house dates, at the beginning of each semester. Many thanks to everyone that joined us, for our Fall 2022 dates! If you weren’t able to attend, please be on the lookout for upcoming opportunities!
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If you’d like to make a special appointment for you or a small group to come for a tour, please email us at bfca@indiana.edu. We’d be happy to welcome you all to come take a look, meet us, and learn about our resources, facility, and history.
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Cicada Cinema Screening
On Friday, September 30, the BFCA was very pleased to co-host a screening of the 1976 film The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and the Motor Kings with Bloomington pop-up cinema, Cicada Cinema, and the City of Bloomington Parks & Recreation Department on the baseball field at Butler Park. The film, which stars Billy Dee Williams, James Earl Jones, and Richard Pryor, follows an all-Black baseball team in the 1930s as they travel around Midwestern towns trying to earn a living by playing local teams with Harlem Globetrotters-like performances. The event featured popcorn, hot dogs, hamburgers, and an opening pitch! Thank you to Cicada Cinema, the City of Bloomington Parks and Recreation Department, and everyone who attended the screening for making it such a success!
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Guest Blog Post: Dr. Cara Caddoo on Rediscovered Footage from
The Trooper of Troop K (1916)
According to the Library of Congress, more than 85% of movies from the silent era of cinema history (1896-1927) are now lost or decayed beyond salvaging. This statistic is even more dire for films made by Black producers and directors, which were nearly always produced and circulated outside the mainstream film industry circuits. While recent rediscoveries and reappraisals have drawn more attention to the silent film achievements of “race” filmmakers like Oscar Micheaux, Alice B. Russell, Richard Maurice, Richard E. Norman, David Starkman, and Sherman H. Dudley, film historians have still struggled to locate any surviving Black-produced footage from prior to 1920. (Put another way, our historical record of the first 25-plus years of commercial film history is devoid of images of Black people made by themselves.)
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In her guest blog post this month, Indiana University professor Cara Caddoo, a close and frequent collaborator of the BFCA, shares her exciting discovery at the Library of Congress of a fragment from The Trooper of Troop K, a 1916 production of the Lincoln Motion Picture Company that is now the earliest known surviving footage from a Black-operated film business. In addition to sharing this rediscovered fragment from Trooper, Dr. Caddoo discusses the history of the Lincoln Company and its importance to our still-incomplete understanding of early film history and Black cinematic culture.
To learn more about the process involved in identifying The Trooper of Troop K, click here to read the post at the Library of Congress’s Now See Hear! blog.
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Maya Cade visit
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We welcomed Maya Cade, founder of www.blackfilmarchive.com, and friend of the Black Film Center & Archive back to the IU campus from September 26 – September 30, for another visit. Ms. Cade, a previous visiting researcher at the BFCA, curated HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS: BLACK CINEMA’S EXPLORATION OF HOME as IU Cinema’s Guest Programmer-in-Residence, which was well received by attendees. September 30, she and filmmaker Isabel Sandoval hosted a public conversation, delving into her curatorial process, her favorite finds from the archives, what’s to come beyond the Black Film Archive, and much more. The conversation was followed by screenings of African Woman, U.S.A. (Ijeoma Iloputaife 1980) and My Brother’s Wedding (Charles Burnett 1983).
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To accompany Cade’s program, the BFCA contributed an exhibit on the basement level of IU Cinema that included the original script for My Brother’s Wedding and other items from our collections that explore themes of Black homemaking.
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Isabel Sandoval visit
On September 30, the BFCA was delighted to welcome a visit to our office from Filipina actress and filmmaker Isabel Sandoval. Director of the award-winning feature Lingua Franca (which premiered at the 2019 Venice Film Festival), Ms. Sandoval was touring IU Libraries facilities prior to her onstage conversation with Maya Cade at the IU Cinema’s Jorgensen Lecture Series.
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Social Media Highlights
Phyllis Klotman
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On September 9, we recognized the birthday of our founding director Dr. Phyllis Klotman (1924-2015). As professor at Indiana University’s Dept. of African American and African Diaspora Studies (then called the Dept. of Afro-American Studies), Klotman dedicated her professional life to addressing the alarming lack of academic, archival and public attention she noticed being bestowed on Black film history. Many early films made by or about people were obscure, disregarded, or lost. In her book, Frame by Frame: A Black Filmography (1979) and through the courses she designed and instructed at IU, Dr. Klotman began some of the earliest work of developing a formal canon of Black film.
With the creation of the BFCA in 1981, she established the first center in the world dedicated entirely to collecting, preserving, and promoting these works. During her tenure as director, Klotman founded the journal Black Camera (initially the BFCA’s newsletter), amassed collections of thousands of films and related materials, and made Indiana a regional hub for visiting filmmakers and events celebrating Black film history. (The Media School at Indiana University Bloomington is the current home to both the BFCA and Black Camera.)
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In Klotman’s obituary in the New York Times, director Charles Burnett said, “One of the first forums that we had was at her school. And for many of us, it was the first time that we had some exposure on this level, in a university setting.”
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(Photos from the BFCA’s General Collection show Klotman with Maya Angelou, Scatman Crothers, Marlon Riggs, Julie Dash, and Gordon Parks.)
Roger Ross Williams
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On September 16, we wished happy birthday to director/producer Roger Ross Williams, born 1962! Mr. Williams has won wide critical acclaim and award recognition for his documentaries like God Loves Uganda (2013), Life, Animated (2016), and The Apollo (2019), as well as his innovative Oculus virtual reality experience Traveling While Black (2019). In 2010, Williams became the first Black American director to win an Oscar, for his Music by Prudence (Best Documentary, Short Subject). Since its 2019 founding, Williams’s production company One Story Up has financed numerous projects by underrepresented filmmakers, including a 2020 feature-length HBO adaptation of Ta-Nehisi Coates’s memoir Between the World on Me (directed by Kamilah Forbes). Williams is currently in production on his debut narrative feature Cassandro, starring Gael García Bernal.
(Oscars photo from Michael Caufield via Getty Images; DVDs from the Black Film Center & Archive’s General Collection.)
Anthony Mackie
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September 23 marked the birthday of actor Anthony Mackie, born 1978! Internationally known as Falcon/Captain America in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Mackie has been a prolific leading man in both independent and big-budget productions since his screen debut in 8 Mile in 2002. Versatile across dramatic and comedic roles, Mackie has collaborated with directors like Spike Lee (She Hate Me [2004]), Jonathan Demme (The Manchurian Candidate [2004]), Michael Bay (Pain & Gain [2013]), and Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker [2008) & Detroit [2017]), as well as headlining films as varied as the LGBT drama Brother to Brother (2004), holiday comedy The Night Before (2015), and coming-of-age drama The Hate U Give (2018).
As his star has grown, Mackie has vocally advocated for Black representation both in front of and behind the camera, criticizing Marvel Studios in 2020 for rarely employing POC crew outside of specific productions like Black Panther: “If you only can hire the Black people for the Black movie, are you saying they’re not good enough when you have a mostly white cast?”
(Photo from Stefanie Keenan Via Getty; DVDs from the BFCA General Collection)
Edna Mae Harris
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We recognized the September 29 birthdate of actor Edna Mae Harris (1914-1997)! Ms. Harris encountered show business from an early age through the many performers (including blues icon Ethel Waters) who stayed at her mother’s boardinghouse near the famous Lafayette Theatre in Harlem. After several uncredited early roles in Hollywood productions, Harris’s screen profile grew after starring in the Warner Bros. all-Black production of The Green Pastures (1936) as Zeba, a role she’d previously played on Broadway. Harris’s final film projects over the next decade were mostly independently-produced “race” films (including Oscar Micheaux’s Lying Lips [1939] and The Notorious Elinor Lee [1940]).
She spent the remainder of her career in live performance, including as a dancer at the Cotton Club and a vocalist with the Noble Sissle Orchestra alongside Lena Horne. Near the end of her life, Harris recounted her film experiences in the documentary Midnight Ramble (1994), about the history of Black American movie productions before 1950.
(Screenshot of Harris in The Green Pastures from 16mm print in the BFCA General Collection)
In Memoriam
Artis Leon Ivey, Jr. – Coolio
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The BFCA celebrates the life of Artis Leon Ivey, Jr., better known as Coolio (1963-2022). A fixture of the ‘80s and ‘990s L.A. hip hop scene, Coolio rose to Grammy-winning fame with the release of his single “Gangsta’s Paradise,” prominently featured in the film Dangerous Minds (1995). Coolio remained a frequent presence in film and TV culture for the next three decades, recording soundtracks for Space Jam (1996) and Kenan & Kel (1996-2000) and acting in many direct-to-video and made-for-TV movies.
(Photo by Paul Bergen via Getty Images.)
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