Thanks for joining us at the Welcome Events!
During the last week of August, we celebrated the arrival of our new Director Dr. Novotny Lawrence with two lively welcome events. Special thanks to our caterer Chef Lee for the delicious food! The staff provided tours as visitors moved in, out, and around our office space. We also gave away Malcolm X hats and Black Filmmaker Hall of Fame sweaters, dated 1992, to those who wanted to take a little history home with them.
The BFCA team is excited to build partnerships and collaborate with the leaders who visited us from all over campus, the city of Bloomington, and beyond. We were thrilled to open our doors to those of you who were curious about the BFCA as well as attendees in search of community. We know the “What’s your favorite film?” question on the survey stumped a few of you, but we’re still here to listen if you settle on one!
BFCA at the Student Involvement Fair
Ja Quita Joy Roberts and Dr. Novotny Lawrence visited the massive Student Involvement Fair in Dunn Meadow, where there are hundreds of student organizations, departments, social clubs, and more each year. Their subheading reads, “Bring your curiosity. Find your community.” The Student Involvement Fair provides students with opportunities to get involved at IU, while making meaningful connections, powerful change, and lifelong friends.
Dr. Lawrence met students that shared in the excitement of his arrival as the new director of the Black Film Center & Archive and expressed their interest in working with the BFCA in various capacities. We look forward to hosting a table at this amazing event, next year!
Screening this Friday at the 2023 Black y Brown Arts Festival
The Black y Brown Arts Festival is back this weekend bolstering artists of color in the city of Bloomington. At the Kickoff on Friday, September 8th, the BFCA and Cicada Cinema are partnering to bring you two shorts Hi De Ho (Roy Mack, 1937) and Valerie: A Woman, an Artist, a Philosophy of Life (Monica J. Freeman, 1975), plus the animated feature Chico & Rita (Tony Errando, Javier Mariscal, and Fernando Trueba, 2010).
Come out to the 4th Street Storefront Gallery, enjoy the films and the art on display on day one, then rest up for the market, grand stage performances, and more on day two in Switchyard Park! All ages are welcome.
Century of 16mm Events
September 13-16th, the Century of 16mm celebrations culminate with a conference hosted here on IU Bloomington’s campus. The conference will feature discussions of films archived in BFCA collections including Sambizanga (Sarah Maldoror 1972) and Black Economic Power (Jessie Maple 1977). Past BFCA guests, South Side Home Movie Project Archivist Justin Williams and Guggenheim Fellow Crystal Z Campbell, will also present work!
The BFCA is excited to offer tours of our space to conference participants and to meet 16mm scholars and filmmakers from all over the world. To learn more about this IU Libraries Moving Image Archive and Media School collaboration, please visit centuryof16mm.com.
Film Screenings in BFCA’s Waiting Area
Check out our new set up in the waiting area! Each morning, BFCA staff selects a film to screen throughout the day, displaying the breadth of our collection and the richness of Black film history. We’ve spent the day with Miss Juneteenth (Channing Godfrey Peoples. 2020), Naked Acts (Bridgett M. Davis. 1996), Aaron Loves Angela (Gordon Parks Jr., 1975), and more. Next time you stop by the office, you may just find us playing that one film you can recite beginning to end!
IU alum & TV critic to visit Indiana University Bloomington
WFIU will host a lively onstage discussion with Eric Deggans, NPR’s TV Critic and Media Analyst, on Wednesday, September 27 at IU Cinema. Deggans will unpack the actors’ and writers’ strike, chat about the best and worst television has to offer, and discuss what the landscape of TV will look like in the future during this onstage discussion with WFIU’s InnerStates host Alex Chambers. The evening will include a Q&A where Eric will field questions from the audience. Admission is free, but seating is limited. Reserve your seat here!
Social Media Highlights
William D. Alexander
On August 21, we celebrated the birthday of pioneering documentarian, producer, and director William D. Alexander (1916-1991)! Among the earliest successful African American producers, Alexander’s production company made over a dozen all-Black features and musical shorts throughout the 1940s, in addition to 250+ “All-American News” newsreels chronicling Black servicemen, for the U.S. government during World War II. In the ‘50s and ‘60s, Alexander Productions won international acclaim (including a Short Film Palme d’Or from the Cannes Film Festival) for a series of documentaries on newly-decolonized African states (Alexander himself was named official filmmaker of Ethiopia and Liberia). The Black Film Center & Archive retains copies of several Alexander productions, including his newsreel work and one of his only directorial credits, Burlesque in Harlem (1949), a unique filmed vaudeville show of Black comedians, singers, and striptease performers.
(Headshot from the Mary Perry Smith Collection; VHS screenshot of
Burlesque in Harlem from the BFCA General Collection)
Janet MacLachlan
August 27 marked the birthday of screen and stage actor Janet MacLachlan (1933-2010)! Ms. MacLachlan began her career on stage in the 1950s/60s in venues across Harlem, L.A., and Minneapolis, and was an active member in racial equity committees. A 1964 contract with Universal Studios jumpstarted her television career, and she would eventually appear on over 75 shows, including Star Trek (1967), The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970), and Good Times (1978). Rejecting roles in 1970s Blaxploitation films, MacLachlan took prominent supporting parts in dramas like Uptight (1968), …tick…tick…tick… (1970), Sounder (1972), and The Man (1972), where she appeared alongside performers such as Jim Brown and James Earl Jones.
(Headshot and 16mm screenshots from Sounder and The Man from the Black Film Center & Archive’s General Collection)
Anita W. Addison
On September 6, we recognized the birthday of acclaimed television director Anita W. Addison (1952-2004)! One of the few Black women executives working in U.S. network TV in the 1990s, Addison produced shows like Sisters (1991) while directing episodes on a wide span of genre shows, including Quantum Leap (1991-92) and ER (1995). Deeply influenced by the radical spirit of the L.A. Rebellion during her schooling at UCLA, Addison’s directorial film work tackled issues such as sexual assault, Black feminism, and African spirituality across two shorts (1976’s Eva’s Man and 1984’s Savannah) and two TV movies (1993’s There Are No Children Here, starring Oprah Winfrey and Maya Angelou, and 1999’s Deep in My Heart). Last year, University of Iowa professor Hayley O’Malley published a lovely post through UCLA’s Film & Television Archive blog exploring Addison’s career and significance: https://tinyurl.com/yekwczjz
(Headshot and VHS screenshot from Savannah [1984] from the Black Film Center & Archive’s Mary Perry Smith Collection)
In Memoriam
Ron Cephas Jones
The Black Film Center & Archive celebrates the life of veteran stage and screen actor Ron Cephas Jones (1957-2023), who passed on August 19. A regular performer both On and Off Broadway since the 1990s, Jones achieved wider notice (and 2 Emmys) for his work on the series This Is Us (2016-2022). In one of his first screen roles, Jones gave a nuanced portrayal of an independent director negotiating a nude scene with his lead actress in Bridgett M. Davis’s feature Naked Acts (1996).
(DVD screenshots from Naked Acts from the BFCA General Collection)
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