Former BFC/A Student Assistant Elijah Pouges is now a writer, rapper and music producer based in Brooklyn, New York. He is often thinking about simulacrum and the interactions between sonics and image. You can find his music at brzraps.com. In this essay Pouges examines the many worlds contained extra-textually Michael Schultz’s films. The films discussed in this post are… Read more »
IU Cinema
Curator Greg de Cuir Jr.: Research notes pt. 5
Visiting Curator Greg de Cuir Jr. is in Bloomington for a week-long research residency at the Black Film Center/Archive and a series of programs concluding with his Show & Tell Workshop at the Auxiliary Library Facility on Friday, Jan. 26. Throughout the week, de Cuir will share notes and photos from his residency with our… Read more »
An Interview with African Film Festival Founder Mahen Bonetti
In the early 90’s, Mahen Bonetti, the Sierra Leone-born founder and executive director of the New York-based African Film Festival Inc., created both the African Film Festival and its traveling series counterpart. For the last two decades, the Festival has enjoyed immense success and garnered respect from the world of film festivals and and their… Read more »
Black Film Center/Archive Fall 2016 Preview
Black Film Center/Archive’s Fall Preview, 2016 The Black Film Center/Archive is pleased to announce its Fall semester programming for the 2016-2017 academic year. Below you will find information about both upcoming film screenings as well as artist and scholar visits. We’d like to thank the IU Cinema, The Media School, and our many other campus… Read more »
THE BLACK G.I. and NO VIETNAMESE EVER CALLED ME NIGGER conclude IU Cinema series “40 Years On: Screening the Vietnam War”
This post was prepared as an introduction to the December 3, 2015, screening of Black Journal: The Black G.I. and No Vietnamese Ever Called Me Nigger, which concludes the series “40 Years On: Screening the Vietnam War.” The screening takes place at 7PM at the IU Cinema and will be followed by a discussion with… Read more »
SEMBENE! directors Samba Gadjigo and Jason Silverman visit Indiana University, Oct. 19-20
With a filmography spanning over forty years, Senegal’s Ousmane Sembène (1923-2007) earned international renown as a revolutionary artist and as the “Father of African Cinema” for his indigenized filmmaking practice. Sembène eschewed Western languages and narrative style for a new cinematic aesthetic drawing from African storytelling traditions, performed in African languages (Wolof, Diola, Bambara), and… Read more »
Celine Sciamma's GIRLHOOD at the IU Cinema this week, May 28-30
Girlhood is a mesmerizing exercise in the enlightenment that can happen when a filmmaker shifts the male cinematic gaze ever so slightly and uncovers what looks like a whole new world.”–Ann Hornaday, The Washington Post Director Celine Sciamma calls Girlhood (original title: Bande de Filles) the conclusion of her unplanned coming-of-age trilogy, following her 2006… Read more »
The Short Films of Abderrahmane Sissako, Thursday 4/16 at IU Cinema
“I think the main source of my inspiration is human beings: my neighbor, my neighbor’s neighbor, the person I buy milk from—all of those people.” – Abderrahmane Sissako Born in Mauritania and raised in Mali, Abderrahmane Sissako is often described as a filmmaker who expresses a particularly African point of view to an international audience…. Read more »
Afrosurrealist Film Society: Conversation with Terri Francis, Part 2 – Blues Cinema
“The blues connects all my work on home movies, Caribbean cinema and experimental film.”– Terri Francis Last week, part one of my interview with IU professor Terri Francis, founder of the Afrosurrealist Film Society, focused on “Afrosurrealism” as a conceptual framework and highlighted the work of Akosua Adoma Owusu, the first visiting filmmaker of the series…. Read more »
Blacula rises on Halloween Night, concluding the "Blaxploitation Horror of the 1970s" series at IU Cinema
“One look at the magnificent six feet, five inches of William Marshall, one echo of that profound, reverberating voice and one feels an anticipatory tingle of majestic things to come. He has a strange quality of solitariness…he is as awesome as a tiger in repose…Marshall stands quite still, then his arms rise, trembling and he… Read more »