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

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!

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.

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!

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.)

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.

Maya Cade visit

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).

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.

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.

Social Media Highlights

Phyllis Klotman

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.)

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.”

(Photos from the BFCA’s General Collection show Klotman with Maya Angelou, Scatman Crothers, Marlon Riggs, Julie Dash, and Gordon Parks.)

Roger Ross Williams

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

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

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

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.)

This week: Open House at the Black Film Center & Archive

Come and check out the BFCA on September 7th or September 8th, 3:00pm – 4:30pm! As the semester starts, we wanted to open our doors to welcome you all to come take a look, meet us, and learn about our resources, facility, and history.

We are located in Herman B. Wells Library Room 044, on the ground floor, across from Media Services and the Bookmarket Eatery.

Our BFCA team is looking forward to meeting you or reconnecting with you! Please join us and bring a friend!

Upcoming Events: Maya Cade program + IU Cinema Exhibit

This September, the IU Cinema welcomes Maya Cade as their guest programmer-in-residence. The creator of the Black Film Archive website tracking Black films available to stream online, Maya is curating a series of five programs with the Cinema collectively titled “Home Is Where the Heart Is: Black Cinema’s Exploration of Home.”

Past and upcoming screenings/events for this series include:

September 1, 7:00pm 

• Your Children Come Back to You (1979), directed by Alile Sharon Larkin
• Claudine (1974), directed by John Berry

September 8, 7:00pm 

• A Different Image (1982), directed by Alile Sharon Larkin
• Alma’s Rainbow (1994), directed by Ayoka Chenzira

September 22, 7:00pm 

• Dreaming Rivers (1988), directed by Martina Attille
• Black Mother (2018), directed by Khalik Allah

September 30, 7:00pm 

• Jorgensen Guest Filmmaker Lecture featuring Black Film Archive founder Maya Cade

September 30, 9:00pm 

• African Woman, U.S.A. (1980), directed by Ijeoma Iloputaife
• My Brother’s Wedding (1983), directed by Charles Burnett

October 1, 7:00pm 

• Behind Every Good Man (1967), directed by Nikolai Ursin
• Pariah (2011), directed by Dee Ree

To accompany these screenings, the BFCA has contributed an exhibit in the basement level of IU Cinema. Included in the exhibit are original production and publicity materials for several of the programmed films (including original scripts for My Brother’s Wedding and promo stills for Claudine), in addition to other items from our collections that explore themes of Black homemaking.

Stop by and check out the exhibit the next time you are at the Cinema! And visit the IU Cinema’s site for more information on individual screenings and ticketing for this series.

Upcoming Event: Body and Soul at the Buskirk-Chumley, featuring DJ Spooky!

On September 16, the BFCA is co-sponsoring a screening of race film pioneer Oscar Micheaux’s silent masterpiece Body and Soul (1925) at the Buskirk-Chumley Theatre in Bloomington, IN — featuring an original live score by Paul D. Miller, aka DJ Spooky!

Starring the great Paul Robeson in his screen debut, Body and Soul is an excoriating critique of gender relations and religious hypocrisy in the Black church, now widely considered one of Micheaux’s most ambitious films. DJ Spooky is an internationally-acclaimed composer, author, and multimedia artist who uses electronic music to bend genres and comment on social and environmental issues. He previously visited Bloomington in 2017 to screen Rebirth of a Nation, a remix and reimagining of D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation.

Further information and ticketing can be found at the Buskirk-Chumley’s website.

Check out the new poster display in our shared study table area

The BFCA’s collections include hundreds of original posters and promotional materials from productions across the breadth of Black film history. We recently rotated in a new themed exhibit of posters (entitled “A Woman’s Touch: Black Women and the Power of Solidarity”) to observe the start of the fall 2022 semester. If you are in Wells library, please stop by our reception area on the ground floor level for a quiet place to hang out or study while being surrounded by beautiful historical examples of Black film promotional art.

BFCA materials on display at the Academy Museum’s exhibition

The Black Film Center & Archive was very honored to loan objects from our collections to the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures’ exhibition, Regeneration: Black Cinema 1898 – 1971. The exhibition, open from August 21, 2022 – April 9, 2023, explores the contributions of Black performers and filmmakers in the United States from cinema’s infancy in the 1890s through the height of the civil rights movement. It fills seven galleries in the museum and features rarely seen moving images, as well as photographs, scripts, drawings, costumes, equipment, posters, and historical materials that document the Black experience in both independent production and the studio system. Some of the items on display from the BFCA include sheet music for Stormy Weather, tap shoes worn by the Nicholas Brothers, an original poster for Reform School (1939), and ephemera from Norman Studios. If you would like to learn more about the exhibition or how to visit, you can do so at the following link: https://www.academymuseum.org/en/exhibitions/regeneration-black-cinema 

Social media highlights

William Marshall

On August 19, we celebrated the birthday of actor William Marshall (1924-2003)! Born in Gary, Indiana, Marshall channeled his towering 6’5″ frame and commanding bass voice into a rich Broadway career, including a long-running performance as Othello widely acclaimed as one of the greatest renditions of the role. His screen career suffered in the 1950s after being blacklisted as a communist sympathizer, but he eventually built an impressive TV resume, with roles on Bonanza (1964), The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (1964), Star Trek (1968), The Jeffersons (1982), as the voice of Iron Man on Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends (1983), and as the King of Cartoons on Pee-wee’s Playhouse (1987-1990). Marshall cemented his place in film history with his title role in Blacula (1972)–one of the top-grossing Blaxploitation films of the ’70s and a milestone in black horror–and its sequel Scream Blacula Scream (1973).

(All images from the BFCA General and Mary Perry Smith Collections.)

Ava DuVernay

August 24 was the birthday of Ava DuVernay (born 1972). Since taking up filmmaking at age 32, Ms. DuVernay has risen as a multi-hyphenate powerhouse as director, producer, and/or writer of dozens of shorts, features, music videos, and series. Her work—including Middle of Nowhere (2012), Selma (2014), 13th (2016), A Wrinkle in Time (2018), When They See Us (2019), and Colin in Black & White (2021)—has netted multiple historic award nominations and wins, and as member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences board of governors, she has continued to fight for the elevation of BIPOC talent and social issues in the entertainment industry.

In 2013, DuVernay visited the BFCA and then-director Michael T. Martin during a visit to Indiana University. A Middle of Nowhere poster she autographed hangs proudly in the BFCA lobby.

Seret Scott

On September 1, we recognized the birthday of actor, activist, and theater artist Seret Scott (born 1949)! Ms. Scott has been deeply immersed in activist theater scenes for over 50 years, directing, writing, and/or starring in dozens of Broadway, off-Broadway, and regional productions. In 1982, she starred as philosophy professor Sara Rogers in Kathleen Collins’s Losing Ground, one of the first feature films directed by a Black American woman. Initially overlooked and not theatrically distributed, Losing Ground has been reappraised as a landmark of American independent cinema since its 2015 restoration and rerelease.

In a 2011 assessment of the film in the journal Black Camera, L.H. Stallings argued for Scott’s sensual and cerebral performance as “required viewing for any black woman” for the ways it challenges common ideas about “intellect, creativity, desire, ecstasy, and black women’s agency.”

(Production stills of Scott in Losing Ground from the BFCA General Collection.)

The BFCA welcomes new Interim Director, Rachael Stoeltje

On August 1, Rachael Stoeltje began a term as Interim Director of the BFCA for the 2022-2023 academic year. Rachael brings decades of experience in archiving and moving image preservation. She founded and also serves as Director of the Indiana University Libraries Moving Image Archive and is the President of AMIA (Association of Moving Image Archivists). She served on the FIAF (International Federation of Film Archives) Executive Committee (2013-2019) and co-founded the FIAF Training and Outreach Program. Most recently, she concluded her role as the Director of the mass digitization for film project at Indiana University that wrapped up in June 2021, resulting in 23,803 digitized film reels. She has served on the Editorial board for AMIA’s The Moving Image Journal. She teaches in the graduate program of the Luddy School’s Department of Information and Library Science. Rachael frequently participants in local and international training and outreach events and initiatives, dedicating herself to mentoring burgeoning archivists and working to bridge the global archival communities in order to address shared challenges in the field of moving image preservation.

Join us in welcoming Rachael to the BFCA team!

Farewell statement from departing BFCA Interim Director, Akin Adesokan

Dear staff, patrons, and friends of the Black Film Center & Archive,

I appreciate the warm welcome you all extended early this year upon my acceptance of the Interim Director role. My hope is that the seven months I served has reoriented the BFCA on a path back toward the vitality we know and love it for, and that you’ll feel it the next time you attend an event or stop by the office to say hello. In its 41st year, the BFCA is still just getting started.

We are actively nurturing the relationship with Black Camera, IU Cinema, and other departments with similar values across IU’s campus including the Neal Marshall Black Culture Center, the African Studies Program, and the African American and African Diaspora Studies department.

We are planning events that bring exciting filmmakers and scholars from across the world to Bloomington. In turn, we are dreaming up events that’ll send the BFCA and our collections across the world. We are reconnecting with you all as well—online and offline—because the BFCA can only thrive with your support. Whether it be through a donation or through advocacy, we need you.

I send my sincerest regards to Rachael Stoeltje, the Interim Director as of August 1, 2022.

Last but certainly not least, I’d like to thank the staff I’ve had the honor of working with this year. In your goodbyes, you said my contributions to the BFCA are “indispensable,” but I did not do any of this on my own. You too are indispensable to the legacy of the BFCA.

Sincerely,
Akin

Filmmaker Amandine Gay donates copies of films and posters!

In March 2022, the BFCA was honored to entertain a visit from French Afro-feminist filmmaker and activist Amandine Gay and her producer/editor Enrico Bartolucci, who were at Indiana University for a lecture and screening of their 2017 documentary Speak Up (Ouvrir la voix). Ms. Gay has generously donated posters and DVDs for Speak Up, as well as for her 2021 film on transracial adoption A Story of One’s Own (Une histoire à soi), for addition to and preservation in the BFCA’s General Collection.

Upcoming Event: Soyinka Film Series

Alongside our partner, the Wole Soyinka International Cultural Exchange, we are hosting a film series and virtual panel discussion in honor of Soyinka’s 88th birthday. There are screenings scheduled where we are located, as well as in Lagos! We invite you to join the celebration when and wherever you are able.

Tuesday, July 12th, 5:30pm EST
Kongi’s Harvest (1971) is a play written by Wole Soyinka and adapted for the screen with Ossie Davis as director. Fictional African country, Isma, is transitioning from governance by traditional ruler Oba Danlola to President Kongi. As the national harvest celebration approaches, these two leaders struggle with power, ego, a yam, and the good of their fellow citizens. Soyinka stars as Kongi. (1 hour, 18 minutes)

Wednesday, July 13th, 5:30pm EST
In dialogue with the play The Strong Breed by Wole Soyinka, So Be It (1997) is the story of a doctor struggling in a rural Senegalese village against practices he abhors, including that of the sacrificial lamb. Boasting a brilliant jazz score to match its visual beauty, So Be It is the work of Jo Gaï Ramaka, a director drawn to challenging subjects and willing to take risks. (31 minutes)

Thursday, July 14th, 5:00pm WAT
Written and narrated by Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka, Culture in Transition (1963) introduces viewers to Nigerian folk traditions and the emergent arts scene in the 1960s. There’s sculpture, mythology, dance, a performance of Soyinka’s play The Strong Breed, and much more. The documentary aired on US television in 1963. (58 minutes)

[All Bloomington screenings will take place at the Phyllis Klotman Room LI 044B, and introduced by Essence London.]

Thursday, July 14th, 1:00pm EST / 6:00pm WAT
Virtual Panel Discussion
Panelists:
Rejoice Abutsa, Cornell University
Tunde Awosanmi, University of Ibadan
Essence London, Indiana University
Deji Toye, Lawyer & Culture Critic, Lagos

Moderator:
Akinwumi Adesokan, Indiana University

Social media highlights

Prince

On June 7, we honored artist, actor, and musician Prince (1958-2016). In addition to his proudly flamboyant, generation-defining, genre-bending music persona and starring role in Purple Rain (1984), Prince also worked extensively behind the camera, directing himself in the musical dramas Under the Cherry Moon (1986) and Graffiti Bridge (1990), as well as the concert film Sign o’ the Times (1987).

[Promotional photo for Purple Rain from the African American Contributions to Film Collection; original photo caption reads: “Frenzied fans hail the performance of funk star Prince with the traditional ‘ashe’ symbolizing love, peace, power, and self-fulfillment in a scene from the new dramatic film ‘Purple Rain,’ a Warner Bros. release.”; Japanese poster for Under the Cherry Moon from the BFCA’s General Collection]

Tupac Shakur

On June 16, we wished happy birthday to Tupac Shakur (1971-1996), era-defining hip hop artist, poet, and performer. Tupac made a mark in both the music and film industries, starring in early “hood” films like Juice (1992) and Poetic Justice (1993) that explored inner-city gang violence and inequality, in addition to taking roles in Above the Rim (1994), Bullet (1996), Gridlock’d (1997), and Gang Related (1997). His life, music, and tragic death have been the basis for numerous documentaries, retrospectives, and tributes, including a 2017 biopic All Eyez on Me, starring Demetrius Shipp Jr. (Photo by Michael O’Neill via Getty Images, 1996; DVDs and VHS tapes from our BFCA general collection.)

Joie Lee

On June 22, we wished a happy birthday to screenwriter, producer, and actor Joie Lee, born in 1962. A key and frequent collaborator with her brother Spike Lee, Ms. Lee has appeared in front of the camera in She’s Gotta Have It (1986), School Daze (1988), Do the Right Thing (1989), Mo’ Better Blues (1990), Girl 6 (1996), Get on the Bus (1996), She Hate Me (2004), and Da Sweet Blood of Jesus (2014), in addition to writing screenplays for Crooklyn (1994) and the She’s Gotta Have It TV series (2017-2019). In 2003, Ms. Lee also featured in a prominent role in Jim Jarmusch’s film Coffee and Cigarettes. (Mo’ Better Blues lobby card from the BFCA’s Edward Mapp Collection; photo by Patrick McMullan via Getty Images.)

Alice B. Russell

On June 30, we recognized the birthday of Alice B. Russell (1889-1985), pioneering actress and producer of early “race films” featuring all-Black casts that were distributed to predominantly Black American audiences from the 1920s through 1940s. Along with her husband, filmmaker Oscar Micheaux, Mrs. Russell administered the independent Micheaux Film Company, where she produced and/or starred in Oscar’s feature films like Wages of Sin (1929), Veiled Aristocrats (1932), The Girl from Chicago (1932), and Murder in Harlem (1935). Today, these works stand as some of the earliest surviving Black American film productions, presenting a richer range of roles and narratives with Black characters than the limited stereotypes found in Hollywood.

Largely ignored by historians between Oscar’s death in 1951 and her own passing in 1985, Mrs. Russell has recently gained more recognition for her place in early film history. In 2018, the BFCA helped spearhead an initiative to place a new memorial headstone (pictured) at Alice Russell’s unmarked gravesite.

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For more information about the BFCA, please visit our website www.bfca.indiana.edu. To subscribe to our blog, please visit our blog page https://blogs.iu.edu/bfca/ and click on “Subscribe” in the bottom right of the screen. Please consider ways to give, to continue our efforts and supporting our mission. We sincerely thank you all for your support. We would not be able to complete all of our wonderful programs and awesome events, without your help.

Warmest regards,
BFCA Interim Director and Staff

IU Day 2023

On April 20, the BFCA joined other programs across the Indiana University campuses and alumni worldwide in recognizing IU Day. In addition to open house tours of our office throughout the afternoon, we also participated in the IU Day block party by the Showalter Fountain, where we met hundreds of undergrads and passed out BFCA-branded pens, magnets, buttons, bookmarks, and other cool swag. Thank you to everyone who donated or stopped by our table to say hi! If you missed us, feel free to stop by our office at Wells 044 and pick up some swag!

Jerald Harkness visit/Steppin’ screening

On April 6, the BFCA, in partnership with the Media School, hosted a special screening of IU alumnus Jerald Harkness’s 1992 documentary Steppin’ as part of the Past and Present screening series, curated by Media School senior, Taiah Wilson. Filmed on the IU Bloomington campus, this 55-minute film examines step shows then popular among Black fraternities and sororities. It won the Gold Apple Award for the National Educational Film and Video Festival and remains a unique document not only of IU campus life in the 1990s, but also of African American music and dance history.

The screening was followed by a discussion and Q&A lead by Taiah Wilson with Mr. Harkness and Tony Favors, who appeared in the documentary. The discussion included topics such as Harkness’s filmmaking practices, why he chose to document step shows, the on-going legacy of step shows, Favors’s experiences making the film, and how the process of making Steppin’ impacted their future lives and careers.

Prior to the screening, Mr. Harkness paid a return visit to the BFCA office, where he toured our facilities and reminisced about the many changes in film production since the 1990s.

Frame by Frame podcast

Frame by Frame is a limited podcast series of conversations with scholars and filmmakers who visited the BFCA between 2018 and 2020 (including Numa Perrier, Philana Payton, Jessie Maple, Esther Figueroa, and TreaAndrea Russworm). Hosted by former BFCA director Dr. Terri Francis and edited/produced by BFCA graduate assistant David Carter, each episode overviews the interviewees’ professional careers and published work. Available to stream for free on your podcast app of choice.

https://bfca.indiana.edu/the-center/podcast.html

InLight Film Festival

Curated by graduate students Cole Nelson and Mallika Khanna of The Media School, with support from IU Cinema and Center for Documentary Research and Practice

InLight (Human Rights Documentary) Film Festival is an entirely student-run festival aimed at promoting interaction between students, scholars, and practitioners who all share an investment in the many struggles for human rights occurring around the world. Inaugurated in 2015, the fifth edition of ILFF, took place on April 14–16, 2022, and featured eight screenings and a series of lectures, workshops, and roundtables by filmmakers, scholars, and community members. Their mission is to promote powerful films that speak to contemporary issues and to bring the knowledge and experience of a diverse group of filmmakers to the attention of the IU and Bloomington communities. Guest filmmakers and scholars were present at each screening to participate in a post-film discussion. Additionally, Pamela Sporn who is a Bronx-based documentary filmmaker, educator, and producer of Detroit 48202: Conversations Along a Postal Route among other incredible films made a special visit to the BFCA, for a tour. Thanks for coming by!

Visit InLight Film Festival’s website for more information on the festival.

Social media highlights

Boots Riley

On April 1, we recognized the 51st birthday of activist, filmmaker, and The Coup vocalist Boots Riley. Mr. Riley visited the IU campus in October 2018 as part of the Jorgensen Guest Filmmaker Series for a screening of his acclaimed debut feature Sorry to Bother You. As part of the visit, he sat down with IU Cinema founding director Jon Vickers to record an exclusive conversation on his influences and career: Final Draft: Boots Riley on Film

Billy Dee Williams

On April 6, we wished a happy 85th birthday today to Billy Dee Williams, star of The Final Comedown (1972), Lady Sings the Blues (1972), Hit! (1973), Mahogany (1975), and The Empire Strikes Back (1980). Mr. Williams was handprinted by artist Casper Banjo in 1984 during his induction into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame, and the BFCA retains this handprint along with dozens of other Black film artists who were inducted into the Hall of Fame from the 1970s through the 1990s.

Duane Jones

On April 11, we celebrated the birthday of actor Duane Jones (1937-1988). In addition to his groundbreaking role in Night of the Living Dead (1968), Mr. Jones was a respected theater director who lent his acting talents to Bill Gunn’s Ganja & Hess (1973) and Kathleen Collins’s Losing Ground (1982).

Souleymane Cissé

On April 21, we wished a happy 82nd birthday to Malian director Souleymane Cissé, whose Finye (1982) and Yeelen (1987) are masterworks of world cinema. Appearing here as guest of BAMPFA in March 2020, where he was photographed by BFCA director Akin Adesokan. (Yeelen poster from the Josef Gugler African and Middle Eastern Film Collection.)

Giancarlo Esposito

On April 26, we wished a happy 64th birthday to prolific character actor Giancarlo Esposito, born in 1958. Best known in recent years for his TV work in series like Breaking Bad, Dear White People, and The Mandalorian, Esposito has also had many fruitful collaborations with Spike Lee, appearing in the director’s early films School Daze (1988), Do the Right Thing (1989), Mo’ Better Blues (1990), and Malcolm X (1992). (Promotional photograph of Esposito in Do the Right Thing from the BFCA’s General Collection. Headshot photo courtesy of Super Festivals.)

Bridgett M. Davis’s Naked Acts premiere

On May 5, we recognized the 26th anniversary of Bridgett M. Davis’s film Naked Acts, which premiered at the Boston Festival of Women’s Cinema in 1996. A landmark feminist exploration of Black women’s sexuality and body image, the film would play to critical and popular acclaim at festivals throughout the late 90s, breaking box office records for a single-screen release at the Thalia Theater in New York City during its four-week run in 1998. Davis donated the original production elements for Naked Acts to the Black Film Center & Archive in 2013 and was honored with a two-day symposium at Indiana University in 2014 on the film’s legacy within the history of independent African American cinema.

Gabourey Sidibe

On May 6, we wished happy birthday to Gabourey Sidibe, born in 1983! Acclaimed for her debut performance as the title character in Precious (2009), a role which earned her Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations, Sidibe has also co-starred in the television series American Horror Story and Empire, as well as films such as Yelling to the Sky (2011), White Bird in a Blizzard (2014), Come As You Are (2019), and Antebellum (2020). A pencil and acrylic portrait of Sidibe in her iconic Precious role, painted by artist Adele Stephenson in 2012 under commission for the journal Black Camera, proudly hangs near the entrance of our BFCA office.

For more information about the BFCA, please visit our website www.bfca.indiana.edu. To subscribe to our blog, please visit our blog page https://blogs.iu.edu/bfca/ and click on “Subscribe” in the bottom right of the screen. Please consider ways to give, to continue our efforts and supporting our mission. We sincerely thank you all for your support. We would not be able to complete all of our wonderful programs and awesome events, without your help.

Warmest regards,
BFCA Interim Director and Staff

Matterport Scan – We’ve Gone 3D!

Can’t physically visit our office? How about a virtual visit instead? The BFCA office on IU Bloomington’s campus was recently given a Matterport 3D scan courtesy of the Indiana University IU3D Team. Check out this unique interactive virtual tour, featuring our space, amenities, and several featured items from our archival collections, such as the item pictured below! (Simplex 35mm Projector donated by Jon and Jennifer Vickers from the Vickers Theatre and the collection of Kenneth Marks).

Click the link below and then the play button in the bottom left corner for an automated tour or click around and explore the space at your leisure.

https://bfca.indiana.edu/about/virtual-tour.html

Black Film Center & Archive celebrates IU Day!

Join us at our virtual and onsite activities as we participate in the IU Day celebration! The Black Film Center & Archive is the go-to resource of Black film experiences and memories, and you can support our programs and research outreach by making a donation today! #IUDay

Donate to the BFCA

Steppin’ screening event

In 1992, Jerald B. Harkness filmed his debut film Steppin’ on the IU Bloomington campus. The 55-minute documentary, an examination of “step show” dances popular among Black fraternities and sororities, won the Gold Apple Award from the National Educational Film and Video Festival and remains a unique document not only of IU campus life in the early 1990s, but also of African American music and dance history.

On Wed, April 6 at 5:30pm, the Black Film Center and Archive, in partnership with The Media School, will present a special screening of Steppin’ at the Lee Norvelle Theatre and Drama Center as part of the Media School’s Past and Present screening series. Director/producer Jerald Harkness will be present for the program and a post-film discussion and Q&A. This event is free and open to the public.

Archival spotlight

The past few weeks have been spent cataloging and inventorying old publications in our reference collection spreadsheet and organizing them in a more centralized location on our shelves closer to the collections vault. The range of publications which include magazines, journals, and catalogs are incredible and, in perusing them in the process of inventory, one could liken the experience to moving through a time capsule on the written word and its relationship to cinema.

Some of the most prominent publications in the collection include the film journal American Cinematographer, with its exceptionally striking covers, and whose issues, in our collection, range from as early as 1963 to 1998, long-running film magazine Cineaste with issues beginning in 1986 to 2016, and some fascinating 2009 and 2010 issues of the recently re-launched Ebony Magazine with profiles on compelling figures in film such as Viola Davis and Taraji P. Henson who discuss the dearth of substantial roles for Black women in cinema beyond tropes and stereotypes.

Black Camera, FESPACO collaborative three-part edition

The final issue in the three-part edition of Black Camera: An International Film Journal (Fall 2020 – Summer 2021) concludes a two-year collaboration with Gaston Kaboré, filmmaker and director of IMAGINE Film Institute, and the Pan-African Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou (FESPACO), a major biannual festival devoted to African and Black diasporic cinemas.

The first issue in the collaboration covers the formation, evolution and challenges of FESPACO. The second addresses colonial antecedents, constituents, theory and articulations. The final issue includes statements, declarations, resolutions and manifestos. Together, the issues constitute about 2,000 pages.

A scholarly publication supported by The Media School, the journal is edited by Professor Michael Martin. Doctoral candidate Megan Connor is the journal’s managing editor, and doctoral students Samuel Smucker, Cole Nelson, Allison Brown and Essence London are assistant editors.

BFCA’s visit to the McCalla

On March 10, BFCA staff members toured the newly renovated McCalla School. Recently assumed control by University Collections, McCalla has been transformed into an exhibition, teaching, and events space that is open for use by all of IU’s special collections across all campuses. During the tour, we were very impressed by the new teaching spaces, event room, and galleries, as well as by the many opportunities to collaborate with University Collections. In the future, we are hoping to utilize this space to showcase materials from the BFCA’s collections, among many other possibilities, so stay tuned! You can learn more about McCalla and the renovation by visiting their website.

Social media highlights

Sarah Maldoror

The Black Film Center & Archive‘s Highlight of the week: “One of the first women to direct a film on the African continent, French West Indian filmmaker Sarah Maldoror, often referred to as the Mother of African Cinema, had a career spanning four decades. Having produced more than forty-two films during her lifetime, including features, shorts, and documentaries, Maldoror’s work reflected her passion for poetry and art and her commitment to fighting for the liberation of oppressed peoples. Among the films in her extraordinary oeuvre is the film Sambizanga, set in 1961 and which centers the story of a wife searching for her jailed revolutionary husband during the Angolan War of Independence.

Zeinabu irene Davis

On International Women’s Day and in honor of Women’s History Month, we honored filmmaker Zeinabu Irene Davis. Since her debut in the late 1980s, Davis has received acclaim for her incredible body of work ranging from documentaries, short narratives, and experimental films. Davis’s powerful films, including Cycles and A Powerful Thang often employ poetic experimental techniques to illuminate and center the complex inner lives and experiences of African American women.

Kathleen Collins

On March 18th, we wished a happy birthday to tr ailblazing filmmaker, educator, and activist Kathleen Collins (1942-1988), whose The Cruz Brothers and Miss Malloy (1980) and Losing Ground (1982) were among the first feature-length films directed by a Black American woman. Ms. Collins is pictured here during a visit to the Black Film Center & Archive in July 1983 as a participant in the Creative Use of Black Film workshop and festival of films by independent Black filmmakers.

Spike Lee

On March 20th, the Black Film Center & Archive wished a happy birthday to master filmmaker Spike Lee, who celebrated his 65th birthday! Mr. Lee’s works are prominent fixtures of our office on Indiana University Bloomington’s campus, from our lobby poster commemorating the 2021 Cannes Film Festival (when Mr. Lee served as jury president), to the posters spanning his career that adorn the walls of our Phyllis Klotman classroom.

For more information about the BFCA, please visit our website www.bfca.indiana.edu. To subscribe to our blog, please visit our blog page https://blogs.iu.edu/bfca/ and click on “Subscribe” in the bottom right of the screen. Please consider ways to give, to continue our efforts and supporting our mission. We sincerely thank you all for your support. We would not be able to complete all of our wonderful programs and awesome events, without your help.

Warmest regards,
BFCA Interim Director and Staff

Reminder: New name, new logo, new website!

Starting January 18, 2022, we are officially the Black Film Center & Archive. Our new name can be abbreviated as “BFCA”. We are also proud to debut a new logo design and a fully updated website, featuring a cleaner, more user-friendly interface for exploring the BFCA’s history and collections. Visit us at bfca.indiana.edu to check it out. An example of our new logo is in the title above. We also invite you to email us at bfca@indiana.edu with any feedback about the new site’s appearance or usability, or if you encounter a technical problem.

BFCA poster exhibit

A curated selection of original film posters from the BFCA’s collections are now on display in the upper gallery commons area of Franklin Hall. The current exhibit will remain up through the spring semester. Stop by Franklin Hall to check out this unique display of promotional art highlighting examples of Black film and filmmaking from the past century!

We’re back on social media!

Like, follow, and subscribe to the BFCA on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for our latest news and events, as well as other posts on all things related to Black film! Our recent Facebook posts for Black History Month included tributes to filmmakers William Greaves and Sarah Maldoror written by BFCA archival assistant MarQuis Bullock.

Paulin Vieyra screenings

To celebrate the acquisition of the Paulin S. Vieyra Collection (detailed in our most recent blog post by BFCA archival assistant MarQuis Bullock), the BFCA partnered with the IU Cinema to screen a selection of Vieyra’s rarely-seen short films on February 8 (in addition to a virtual stream of the same program). Vieyra’s youngest son, Stéphane Vieyra, graciously recorded a new video introduction for the screening’s occasion.

On February 10, the IU Cinema presented a virtual discussion and Q&A on Vieyra’s films, featuring former BFCA Director Terri Francis and IU Associate Professor of Francophone Studies Vincent Bouchard. Their conversation delved into the many creative, financial, and political challenges confronting early anti-colonial African filmmakers in forging an African cinematic identity outside of Western colonial control. The two also discussed the challenging, multiyear project of bringing the Vieyra Collection to IU and the impact of the accessibility of these materials to researchers of African cinema.

The discussion between Dr. Francis and Dr. Bouchard is available to watch in full here courtesy of the IU Cinema’s YouTube channel.

“Voice with a Mission”: Amazing Grace screening

On February 22, the BFCA was proud to partner with IU’s Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center for a screening of the acclaimed Aretha Franklin concert documentary Amazing Grace in the Phyllis Klotman classroom. The event included a guided tour of the BFCA office space, as well as a post-screening conversation lead by NMBCC Director, Dr. Gloria Howell and BFCA Director,  Dr. Akin Adesokan. Many thanks to all of the participants and attendees.

Acclaimed Filmmaker Amandine Gay and Producer/Editor Enrico Bartolucci Visit Indiana University

Indiana University welcomed accomplished French Afro-feminist filmmaker, writer, and activist Amandine Gay to campus for a series of campus events from February 21-23. Gay and her producer/editor Enrico Bartolucci were in attendance for a screening of her 2017 film Speak Up (Ouvrir la voix), a documentary chronicling the diverse experiences with identity and discrimination among French-speaking women of African descent. IU professor of Anthropology and African American and African Diaspora Studies Dr. Elena Guzman moderated a conversation and Q&A with Gay and Bartolucci following the program. As part of her visit, Gay also delivered a lecture on “Practicing Intersectionality and Being Actively Antiracist” at the IU Memorial Union.

Prior to the lecture on February 23, the BFCA was honored to welcome Gay and Bartolucci to our office for a visit and guided tour. The two admired several artifacts from the BFCA vault, including promotional materials for Melvin Van Peebles’s Watermelon Man (1970), a signed poster for the 25th anniversary restoration of Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust (1991), and original press kits for The Watermelon Woman (1996) and Do the Right Thing (1989).

Read more about Gay and her work in this recent guest post by Julie Le Hegarat on the IU Cinema blog!

For more information about the BFCA, please visit our website www.bfca.indiana.edu. To subscribe to our blog, please visit our blog page https://blogs.iu.edu/bfca/ and click on “Subscribe” in the bottom right of the screen. Please consider ways to give, to continue our efforts and supporting our mission. We sincerely thank you all for your support. We would not be able to complete all of our wonderful programs and awesome events, without your help.

Warmest regards,
BFCA Interim Director and Staff

(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.

The Last Dragon screening

2018 Black Film Center/Archive Visiting Research Fellowships

The Black Film Center/Archive in The Media School at Indiana University- Bloomington is now reviewing the second cycle of the 2018 Black Film Center/Archive Visiting Research Fellowships to support research toward a dissertation, thesis, publication, presentation, or production. These competitive fellowships for visiting researchers residing outside the Bloomington area are intended to advance the study of black film and media and to promote research in the collections at the BFC/A by filmmakers, graduate students, independent scholars, and faculty members at any rank. Scholars and filmmakers currently working or studying at an HBCU are strongly encouraged to apply.

What took you and everyone else so long to write about Gunn?!

Writer and Ph.D. Candidate (Yale University) Nicholas Forster visited the BFC/A for research on a biography about actor-director-playwright Bill Gunn (pictured here), most recognized for directing the experimental horror movie Ganja and Hess in 1973. In our BFC/A blog, Forster reflects upon a question that pursued him as he conducted his research in the Mary Perry Smith Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame Archives Collection. Forster is one of five inaugural fellows to visit the BFC/A in the coming months. Click HERE to read Forster’s blog.

The 64th Robert Flaherty Seminar

Hamilton, NY — BFC/A Director Terri Francis and the IU Moving Image Archive’s Film Digitization Specialist Carmel Curtis attended the 64th Flaherty Film Seminar June 16 – 22, 2018. Taking place at Colgate University, the seminar’s theme was THE NECESSARY IMAGE, programmed by independent curator Greg De Cuir and filmmaker Kevin Jerome Everson. The seminar featured films and installations from Serbia, the Philippines, South Africa, Europe, the United States, and Thailand in sessions that ran from 9AM to 10PM with post-film discussions. As this photo illustrates, many Afrosurrealists, including former and future BFC/A guests were in attendance: Kevin Everson (front, center), Cauleen Smith (front right), Francis (left in black) Ja’Tovia Gary (left in green), Michael Gillespie (left above), De Cuir (Top), Jon Goff (2nd row), Ephraim Asili (in cap), Carmel Curtis (behind Everson), Crystal Campbell (next to Curtis) and Christopher Harris (right, in glasses).

Shai Heredia will be the 2019 Flaherty Seminar Programmer. Heredia is a filmmaker and curator of film art and currently runs ExperimentaIndia. http://flahertyseminar.org

Alice B. Russell Micheaux headstone

Rye, NY — Thanks to many generous donors and the combined efforts of independent film historian Lina Accurso and BFC/A Director Terri Francis, Mrs. Alice B. Russell Micheaux, producer, actress, vocalist has received a headstone more than 30 years after her burial in 1985. A GoFundMe campaign was launched in November with the goal of raising around $2000 to commission the stone and hold a small memorial service graveside. The memorial took place April 11, 2018 and the stone was placed May 24 in time for Mrs. Micheaux’s 129th birthday in June.

William Greaves workshop

Bloomington, IN — Professor Joan Hawkins chaired the ON BILL GREAVES workshop which took place Thursday August 9 during the Visible Evidence conference at IU Bloomington. Louise Greaves was a special guest of the BFC/A. Professors Jacqueline Stewart and Scott MacDonald are editing a new scholarly collection of essays on Greaves’ extraordinary career as an independent filmmaker.

Visible Evidence, the international conference on documentary film and media, convened for its 25th year at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana August 8-11, 2018. VE XXV was hosted by Indiana University’s Center for Documentary Research and Practice in collaboration with IU Cinema, the Media School, IU Office of the Bicentennial, Cinema and Media Studies, the College of Arts and Sciences, the Kinsey Institute, the Black Film Center/Archive, the IU Libraries Moving Image Archive, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Amir George – Meditation on An Archive

During filmmaker/curator Amir George‘s research residency at the Black Film Center/Archive this week, he will present a short film program at The Media School, Meditation on An Archive. The midday program takes place at the Franklin Hall screening room (304) on Wednesday, April 4, 11:30am-12:45pm.

Born and bred in Chicago. Amir George creates work for the cinema, installation, and live performance. Amir’s motion picture work has been screened at film festivals including Ann Arbor Film Festival, Trinidad and Tobago International Film Festival, BlackStar Film Festival, Afrikana Film Festival, and Chicago Underground Film Festival as well as cultural institutions, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, Anthology Film Archives, Glasgow School of Art, Museum of Contemporary Arts, Los Angeles, and Museum of Contemporary Arts Detroit. Amir has organized cinematic themed symposiums at Cooper Union, and Talbot Rice Gallery at the University of Edinburgh. Amir has curated exhibitions at Transmission Gallery Scotland, and Silent Funny Chicago. In addition to founding The Cinema Culture, a grassroots film programming organization, Amir is the co-founder of Black Radical Imagination, a touring experimental short film series with Erin Christovale.

Black Film Nontheatrical: Shani Miller and Golden State Mutual

For the final Spring 2018 event in the Black Film Nontheatrical series, the BFC/A and the IU Libraries Moving Image Archive welcome Shani Miller, Metadata and Digital Processing Coordinator, UCLA Library Ethnomusicology Archive.’

Miller will be discussing materials from the Haynes Foundation-funded Golden State Mutual (GSM) Audiovisual Digitization and Access Project at the UCLA Library for which she was project coordinator. The GSM Life Insurance Company was founded in Los Angeles in response to discriminatory practices that restricted the ability of Black residents to purchase insurance. Over its nearly 85 years of business, GSM was committed to self-documentation, building a rich collection of photographs, sound recordings, and moving images.

Miller’s presentation takes place at the IU Libraries Screening Room (Wells 048) on Thursday, April 26, at 2:15pm.

BFC/A Visiting Research Fellowships

The inaugural cycle of the BFC/A Visiting Research Fellowship program was met with an encouraging response by outstanding applications from around the globe. Our five inaugural fellows were selected in March and will be visiting the archives over the course of the year. They are:

• Jerome Dent, PhD Candidate, University of Rochester
• Yasmin Desouki, Artistic Director, Cimatheque – Alternative Film Centre, Cairo, Egypt
• Nicholas Forster, PhD Candidate, Yale University
• Katherine Fusco, Assistant Professor, University of Nevada, Reno
• Steve Ryfle, Independent Researcher, Los Angeles

We will be sharing more information soon about our inaugural fellows through The Media School’s Communications Office. The second 2018 cycle of visiting research fellowships is now open for applications. The deadline for this cycle is August 15, 2018, with notifications to be made by September 15, 2018.

Remembering Mrs. Alice B. Russell Micheaux

Through the efforts of BFC/A director Terri Francis, independent silent film historian Lina Accurso, and a generous community of donors, arrangements are in place to set a memorial headstone at the unmarked grave of Mrs. Alice B. Russell Micheaux in 2018.

On April 11, 2018, at 11:00 am, a group will gather at the site in Greenwood Union Cemetery, Rye, NY, for for a meaningful remembrance of Mrs. Micheaux’s life and her vital contributions to early African American cinema as a producer, actress, script supervisor, and spouse to Oscar Micheaux. Please join us and share the event information linked here.

We plan to honor Mrs. Micheaux with a floral arrangement, music from Jasmine Muhammad, and a blessing from Rev. Martha Cruz, a member of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, local to Rye. Due to the long New York winter, we unfortunately will not be able to install and dedicate the rose marker on this occasion, but it will be in place by the anniversary of Mrs. Micheaux’s birth on June 30.

Black Camera 9.1 Now Available

The latest issue of Black Camera is now available from the Indiana University Press and online through JSTOR and Project MUSE.

The current issue includes:

• Articles by Amadou Fofana and Bruce S. Hall; Albert Fu and Martin Murray; Reighan Gillam; and Olivia Landry;
• Michael T. Martin and Yalie Kamara in conversation with Dany Laferrière;
• A Close-up on Beyoncé with an introduction by Stephanie Li and articles by Eric Harvey, Emily J. Lordi, Mako Fitts Ward, Marquis Bey, Dinah Holtzman, Alicia Wallace, Aisha Durham, and Tiffany E. Barber;
• An Archival Spotlight by BFC/A archivist Ronda L. Sewald on Phil Moore; And, a FESPACO 2017 Dossier, Film Review, and more.

Coffee & Donuts

Thursday, April 26, from 9:00-11:00 am will be your last chance this semester to join us here at the BFC/A for Coffee & Donuts with our director and staff. We’ll be back for your refills in the fall.