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Black Film Center & Archive Blog Indiana University Bloomington

Washington University Libraries Travel Grant Competition

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Travel Grant Competition
The Department of Special Collections
Washington University Libraries St. Louis, Missouri

Application Deadline: March 15, 2011. Travel must occur between May 15, 2011 and June 30, 2012.
Travel reimbursement grants of up to $1000 are available to faculty, graduate students, undergraduates, and independent scholars who would like to use our collections for research. Funds may be used for transportation, food, lodging, and photocopying. Applicants must reside at least 50 miles from St. Louis.
The Department of Special Collections is a multi-faceted research institution that contains materials related to a wide variety of academic disciplines. Below is a listing of some of our major collections:
Film and Media Archive: The Film and Media Archive is committed to the preservation of documentary film and other media which chronicle America’s great political and social movements, with a particular emphasis on the African-American experience. The collections of prominent filmmakers Henry Hampton (Eyes on the Prize) and William Miles (I Remember Harlem) include hundreds of hours of high quality programming and feature a comprehensive and diverse array of primary interviews, photos, archival footage, and written documents gathered and generated during the film production process.  For more information, contact Joe Thompson at joseph.thompson@wustl.edu or (314) 935-8739, or visit our on-line catalog at http://library.wustl.edu/units/spec/filmandmedia/.
Manuscripts: Collections of literary papers, press archives, and magazine archives. The bulk of the collection consists of the papers of major 20th-century literary figures including James Merrill, Samuel Beckett, Howard Nemerov, Stanley Elkin, William Gass, Mona Van Duyn, and many others. For more information, contact Anne Posega at anne-posega@wustl.edu or (314) 935-5487, or visit http://library.wustl.edu/units/spec/manuscripts/.
Modern Graphic History Library: Dedicated to acquiring and preserving distinguished works of modern illustration and pictorial graphic culture. Focusing on artists’ working materials and sketches as well as finished artworks, the range of the collection extends from book, magazine, and advertising illustration to graphic novels, comics, poster design, pictorial information design, and animation. For more information, contact Skye Lacerte at slacerte@wustl.edu or (314) 935-7741, or visit http://library.wustl.edu/units/spec/MGHL/.
Rare Books: Collection strengths include the history of books and printing, especially the English Arts & Crafts movement; the book arts; semeiology and the history of non-verbal communication; a collection of Little Black Sambo books and related objects; and 19th- and 20th-century British and American literature complementing the modern literary archives housed in the manuscript unit. For more information, contact Erin Davis at erindavis@wustl.edu or (314) 935-5583, or visit http://library.wustl.edu/units/spec/rarebooks/.
University Archives: The Washington University Archives is comprised of more than 300 unique collections. Most collections chronicle the history of Washington University from 1853 to the present day. These diverse collections range from the writings of University co-founder William G. Eliot, to student produced publications, and professional and personal papers of faculty members such as Arthur Holly Compton. Other collections relate to 20th-century St. Louis history, with a focus on business, transportation, politics, social welfare, urban planning, and architecture. For more information, contact Sonya Rooney at srooney@wustl.edu or (314) 935-9730, or visit http://library.wustl.edu/units/spec/archives/.
An application form is available at http://library.wustl.edu/units/spec/tg/TravelGrantApplicationForm2011.pdf.
The Department of Special Collections, Washington University Libraries
http://library.wustl.edu/units/spec/
spec@wumail.wustl.edu
(314) 935-5495

Memorial for James Spruill: February 12th

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The Boston University School of Theatre in the College of Fine Arts is mourning the death of James Spruill, longtime faculty member, actor, director, producer, and activist in the African American theatre movement.  Spruill died of pancreatic cancer on December 31 at the age of 73.
Public Memorial:
Jim, The Official Life Celebration
Saturday, February 12, 2:00-4:30pm
Black Box Theater at the Boston Center for the Arts
“There must be a black theater for the black community, our own voices in our own playwrights, and the more black rage the better,’’ Mr. Spruill told Globe theater critic Kevin Kelly in October 1968, speaking in a resonant, stage-trained voice which was as restrained as the words were fierce.

“Black people,’’ he added quietly, “refuse to go around not being recognized any more.’’
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

James Spruill, a retired CFA associate professor, in 1998. Photo by Kalman Zabarsky.

Euzhan Palcy to Direct, Fantasia Barrino to Star in Mahalia Jackson Film

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“Singer Fantasia Barrino, the winner of the third season of ‘American Idol’ and star of her own VH1 reality-show star, has been tapped to play gospel music legend Mahalia Jackson in a biopic.
“The feature film will be based on the 1993 book ‘Got to Tell It: Mahalia Jackson, Queen of Gospel,’ which recounts the life of the late American gospel singer, a civil rights activist who was also inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
“According to The Hollywood Reporter, the project will be directed by Euzhan Palcy (‘A Dry White Season’) from a script by Jim Evering. She will portray Jackson on her journey from abject poverty in New Orleans to her rise as a global figure in gospel and early supporter of Martin Luther King, Jr. The singer died in 1972 at the age of 60.”
Black Voices, By Wilson Morales on Feb 8th 2011 10:37PM
Click here to read the entire article.

A Litany for Survival: The Life and Work of Audre Lorde

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Date: February 12, 2011
Time: 11am
Location: Washington, D.C.
Price: Free
A Litany for Survival: The Life and Work of Audre Lorde
Ada Gay Griffin & Michelle Parkerson
Producer: Third World Newsreel
US I 1995 I 60 minutes I English
A portrait of Audre Lorde, the eloquent, award-winning black, lesbian, poet, mother, teacher, and activist, whose writings span five decades and articulated some of the most important social and political issues of the century. From Lorde’s childhood roots in Harlem to her battle with breast cancer, this moving film explores a life and a body of work that embody the connections between the civil rights movement, the women’s movement, and the struggle for lesbian and gay rights. At the heart of this documentary is Lorde’s own challenge to “envision what has not been and work with every fiber of who we are to make the reality and pursuit of that vision irresistible.”
Presented in conjunction with the exhibition America I AM: The African American Imprint.
 
This documentary screening is proudly supported by Wal-Mart.

An Evening with Spike Lee: February 26

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Save the date: Saturday, February 26, 7 p.m.
Award-winning film director Spike Lee, among the best-known filmmakers today, will appear at IU Auditorium on Saturday, Feb. 26, as the signature event of ArtsWeek 2011. Lee’s talk will tie into the theme of ArtsWeek 2011, which is ArtsTeach.
The creator of numerous films including Do the Right Thing, She’s Gotta Have It, and Malcolm X, Lee’s life is a prime example of the power that arts education can have on students. Lee credits his mother, a teacher (who died when he was 19), and especially his art-teacher grandmother, for giving him the drive to become the filmmaker he is today. Lee was barely making it in college, when he received a Super 8 camera as a gift. Discovering a love of film, he went on to receive a master of fine arts degree (his grandmother helped him pay for the program) from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. Today, in addition to his many other activities, Lee serves as an educator too, in his role as artistic director of the graduate film program at the Tisch School.
For more information about Spike Lee and his current projects, visit 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks.

Ticketing

Free general admission tickets for Lee’s lecture will be issued to IU Bloomington students with a valid student ID beginning Monday, Feb. 7, at 10 a.m. at the IU Auditorium Box Office. Non-IU students and the public will be able to obtain free general admission tickets beginning on Wednesday, Feb. 9, at 10 a.m. at the IU Auditorium Box Office. There will be a ticket limit of eight tickets per person.

Museum of the Moving Image: A Black History Moment in Hong Kong Action Films

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Above, Final Weapon. Right, Stephan Berwick.

Screening & Live Event
A Black History Moment in Hong Kong Action Films: Screening and Discussion With Martial Arts Pioneers Stephan Berwick and Mike Woods

Part of Fist and Sword
Sunday, February 6, 3:00 p.m.
Stephan Berwick, a mainland-China trained martial artist, is one of America’s foremost practitioners of Chinese martial arts and an early Western performer in Hong Kong action films with Hong Kong film legend Mike Woods. Berwick and Woods were the first Western members of the famous “Wo Yuen Ping Clan,” one of the top martial art film families. Wo Yeun Ping is the action director of The Matrix, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Charlie’s Angels, and other seminal action films.
Berwick and Woods will screen and discuss clips of their film performances with Fist and Sword film series curator and Moving Image trustee Warrington Hudlin. In addition to sharing their on-camera and behind-the-scenes experiences in the Hong Kong film industry, Berwick will show the short film he directed, Final Weapon (2010, 15 mins.), which stars Ren Guangyi and Mike Woods, and features an appearance by Lou Reed.
Free with museum admission.

Artist & Influence Spring 2011

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David Fludd, Visual Artist February 6 at 2PM
Javaka Steptoe, Author-Illustrator February 13 at 2PM
Hatch-Billops Collection, Inc.
491 Broadway, 7th Floor
New York, NY 10012
Admission: FREE (no admission after 2:30PM)
Artist & Influence is an annual journal published by the Hatch-Billops Collection in New York. Among other materials, Hatch-Billops houses an archival collection of oral histories of African American and some Asian and Hispanic artists from all fields of the performing, graphic, and spatial arts. Interviews with Black and Asian filmmakers, actors, musicians, sculptors, photographers, animators, choreographers, singers, and painters, provide new information about the role of minority groups in the development of American arts. Many of the figures whose words are transcribed were elderly when they were interviewed. Their perceptions shed new light on movements such as the Harlem Renaissance, the role of Black musicians during the Depression, or the resistance of Hollywood filmmakers during the 1930s and 40s to using Black actors and actresses. All the interviews will be online and indexed at Alexander Street Press.

Sundance – Reinventing Coming-Of-Age

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“If anything, independent films that train a careful eye on that singular moment when someone begins to first define who they are, who they will become, are a deeply entrenched Sundance tradition. But no more. Oh, the young and troubled are still here in force, but the rules are being rewritten by filmmakers with a genre-busting consistency that suggests something larger and much more exciting is at work.”

Los Angeles Times 01/30/11

Reelout 12– Dreams Deferred: The Sakia Gunn Film Project

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Reelout 12
Queer Film & Video Festival
January 27 – February 5, 2011
Kingston, Ontario, Canada

Tuesday, February 1st, 7pm at the Etherington Auditorium

Dreams Deferred: The Sakia Gunn Film Project

dir : Charles B. Brack
2008/ USA / 58 min
Sakia Gunn was a vibrant, talented 15 year-old African-American lesbian when she was stabbed to death in a brutal hate crime in downtown Newark, New Jersey in 2003. Dreams Deferred explores Sakia’s tragic end and the repercussions of grief, frustration and anger that rocked her communities thereafter. Wrenching footage from the trial of Sakia’s self-confessed murderer is interspliced with testimonials from citizens of Newark; Sakia’s queer community; her immediate family, and from community outreach workers. Appallingly to them is not only Sakia’s murder, but the fact that in the months that followed, the media paid minimal attention to it. Dreams Deferred is a powerful, devastating, documentary about community, tragedy, and a young woman’s life ripped short by the senseless violence of a stranger.
Free Admission There will be a special guest moderated discussion following the screening.

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