Renée Baker visits and shines a light on multitalented composer Phil Moore From May 16-20, the BFCA was honored to welcome back acclaimed composer Renée Baker onsite at our office. Ms. Baker spent the week researching hundreds of original musical manuscripts, correspondence, and other materials from our Phil Moore Collection, named after the prolific musician who… Read more »
Black Film Center & Archive
Phil Moore: Seven Careers in One Great Lifetime (Composer, Arranger, Songwriter, Conductor, Instrumentalist, Coach, Producer)
Renèe C. Baker visited the Black Film Center & Archive in May 2022 to conduct research on the Phil Moore Collection. Ms. Baker wrote the following post documenting her findings and thoughts. In 2016, my first encounter with the genius composer/arranger Phil Moore occurred. While nosing through boxes that had not yet been catalogued nor digitized,… Read more »
The Guiding Spirit of Paulin S. Vieyra
Sometimes opportunities and their significance sneak up on you. I was merely doing my job, but this summer my work contributed to revelatory cultural, and scholarly impact on the field of Black film and on me: I got to help process the papers and materials of a pioneering Francophone African filmmaker. These papers can… Read more »
Unpacking the Treasures of the BFC/A’s New Paulin S. Vieyra Collection
If you’re not familiar with Beninese/Senegalese director Paulin Vieyra (1925-1987), you are missing out on one of the key figures in African and world film history. One of the fathers of African cinema, Vieyra’s life and prolific work as a filmmaker, historian, and essayist track closely with the development of African filmmaking in the period… Read more »
BlackStar Founder & Artistic Director Maori Holmes Presents: Only When It’s Dark Enough Can You See the Stars || 3/12. 6:15PM. LI 048
America Garrett Bradley 30 Short Doc Bereka Nesanet Teshager Abegaze 7 Experimental Fainting Spells Sky Hopinka 11 Experimental Love Song for Latasha, A Sophia Nahli Allison 19 Short Doc Only When It’s Dark Enough Can You See the Stars Charlotte Brathwaite 9 Experimental T Keisha Rae Witherspoon 14 Short Narrative Maori Holmes is scheduled to… Read more »
BlackStar Founder & Director MAORI HOLMES Presents: Only When It’s Dark Enough Can You See the Stars || 3/12, 6:15PM, LI 048
This screening program from the 2019 BlackStar Film Festival offers a series of cinematic love letters, short films that reclaim and retell the lives of individuals and communities with deep reverence and formal innovation. Our title comes from playwright Charlotte Brathwaite’s short film which is itself drawn from the comments of Martin Luther King, Jr…. Read more »
The Black Film Center/Archive Seeks Archivist
The Archivist stewards the diverse archival and research collections of the BFC/A by planning and executing strategies and initiatives for their conservation, preservation, and access in accordance with the BFC/A’s mission. The pioneering Black Film Center/Archive (BFC/A) was established in 1981 as the first archival repository dedicated to collecting, preserving, and making available historically and culturally significant… Read more »
Love! I’m in Love! || Public Talk on Recovering Black Love on Screen by Allyson Field, University of Chicago, Feb 21, 12:15PM, FF 312 ✨❤️💕💕
Recovering Black Love on Screen: Early Film and the Legacies of Racialized Performance Allyson Nadia Field, The University of Chicago In 2017, Dino Everrett, the film archivist at the University of Southern California discovered a c.1900 nitrate film print of an African American couple laughing and embracing repeatedly in a naturalistic and joyful manner—an incredible… Read more »
Love! I’m in Love! || 1970s Teen Romance film: Aaron Loves Angela Screens Monday 2/17 at 7PM, IU Cinema ❤️✨💕
Aaron Loves Angela (1975) In Aaron Loves Angela, teenage Aaron (Kevin Hooks), a member of the aspiring but losing basketball team the Harlem Saints, doesn’t really want to do anything but be with Angela (Irene Cara). Despite his father’s wishes to turn Aaron into the sports star he could’ve been, Aaron tries to woo Angela… Read more »
Love! I’m in Love! || Sidney Poitier’s A Warm December Screens Tonight at IU Cinema in 35mm, 7PM ❤️💕✨✨✨
A Warm December (1973) Sidney Poitier directs and stars in this whirlwind romance as the recently widowed Dr. Matt Younger who meets Catherine (Esther Anderson) while in London with his daughter. As Matt gets closer to Catherine, her secrets unfold. Tender and fantastically romantic, the film combines narrative elements of Roman Holiday and Love Story. Showing the idea… Read more »