Police Protection 3– This is an example of a one-of-a-kind, hand painted poster on canvas that became fairly common in Ghana in the 1980s and 1990s. I had no idea such posters existed and found them fascinating. These posters were commissioned for traveling theaters or “video clubs”. The posters were often done on opened-up flour sacks and their bright and vivid imagery was important in drawing the local crowd to the theater. It’s also interesting to see how these posters can really tell a story through the artwork. Sadly, this is now a dead movement, but an important art form of the Ghanaian culture.

Kini et Adams (Kini and Adams) by Idrissa Ouedraogo, Burkina Faso (1997) – Idrissa Ouedraogo is one of the most acclaimed directors from the African Diaspora, having won many prizes at various international film festivals such as Cannes and the Berlin International Film Festival.  He began his career in 1981 and directed his first feature, Yam Daabo, in 1986. Since then, he continues to be a prolific filmmaker. Kini et Adams is one of his award-winning films, having been nominated for the prestigious Palme d’Or at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival. Kini et Adams is about two friends who have dreams of leaving their rural community for the big city; they struggle to fix up an old car so they can reach their goal. However, they face obstacles when new jobs pop up in their community, which drives a wedge between the friends.

Djanta by Tassere Tahirou Ouedraogo, Burkina Faso (2007) – The younger Ouedraogo also made a name for himself in the Burkinabe film industry. He started off with technical training in Paris, France before making his first directorial film, Le chauffer du depute, in 2000. Since then, Ouedraogo has made more shorts and features on a wide variety of topics in Burkina Faso. Djanta follows the tale of a young African woman, Djanta, who has returned home from university at the request of the pastor who raised her. When she arrives, she is surprised to find out that her family wants her to marry a man that they betrothed her to as a baby. Upset, Djanta runs back to her university and sets about freeing women from traditional constraints. This film touches on several important themes in contemporary Africa, especially forced marriage for women.

FESPACO 1997/2011 – FESPACO (Festival panafricain du cinéma et de la télévision de Ouagadougou), or Panafrican Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou, is held every two years in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. It is the biggest film festival on the African continent. FESPACO began in 1969 and has evolved into an internationally recognized event that includes many countries from Africa and the rest of the world. FESPACO’s aim is to “contribute to the expansion and development of African cinema as means of expression, education and awareness-raising.”

FESPACO has four main focuses: highlighting African film and television, publicizing the local film industry, bringing non-profit screenings to rural villages, and promoting African cinema in the international community. The festival takes place in late February for about two weeks and gives out special prizes at the end of the event. The top prize is called the Étalon de Yenenga which has been awarded to several well-known films such as Tilai (1990) and Buud Yam (1997).

Wend Kuuni by Gaston Kaboré, Burkina Faso (1983) –This movie is about a young mute boy who has been found and adopted by another family. The child, named Wend Kuuni (translated as God’s Gift), bonds with his adoptive sister and settles into his new life. He later witnesses a tragic event that causes him to regain his speech and finally tell his real story. It won the Cesar Award for Best French Language Film in 1985 and Kaboré directed a sequel, Buud Yam, in 1997.

Yeelen (Brightness) by Souleymane Cissé, Mali (1987) – This is a coming of age film about a young African man who has magical powers and must travel across West Africa to find his uncle so he can defeat his jealous shaman father. It won the Jury Prize and was also nominated for the Palme d’Or at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival. This movie remains very well-received, having been chosen as one of the “100 Best Films of World Cinema” by Empire Magazine in 2010.

Join us beforehand at 6:30.  Pick up a 30th anniversary t-shirt and meet BFC/A staff members.  We’ll also be showing recent experimental shorts from our collection.

cane flyer final

Please join us to celebrate the
30th Anniversary of the BFC/A
and
the Work of Charles Burnett

November 4, 2011
5:30 – 7:00
Phyllis Klotman Appreciation – 6:00pm

Wells Library – Media & Reserves

Light refreshments will be served

No RSVP necessary

Saturday, November 12, 8:30 AM – 5:30 PM
Billy Wilder Theater at The Hammer Museum

This one-day symposium organized by Allyson Nadia Field (UCLA) and  Jacqueline Stewart (Northwestern University) is the first of its kind dedicated to the L.A. Rebellion, a key artistic movement of African American and African filmmakers who studied at UCLA between the late 1960s and the early 1980s.

Presented in conjunction with the UCLA Film & Television Archive’s groundbreaking film exhibition, L.A. Rebellion: Creating a New Black Cinema, the symposium will reflect upon the rich and diverse work of these artists–including Charles Burnett, Ben Caldwell, Larry Clark, Julie Dash, Zeinabu Irene Davis, Jamaa Fanaka, Jacqueline Frazier, Haile Gerima, Alile Sharon Larkin, Barbara McCullough and Billy Woodberry, and more than 40 others–who engaged in an unprecedented collective effort to re-imagine Black images in cinema.

Attendees at this free event will also have the opportunity to see rarely-viewed footage that is being preserved by the Archive.  (Continue reading for the symposium schedule…)

SYMPOSIUM SCHEDULE
8:30    Coffee & Registration

9:00    Welcome & Screening: Allyson Nadia Field (UCLA) and Jacqueline Stewart (Northwestern University)

9:45    Keynote: Clyde Taylor (NYU Emeritus)

10:30-12:00  Panel 1: Black Film and Social Change:  Representing Black Culture, Politics, and Labor Before and During the L.A. Rebellion

Chair:  Jan-Christopher Horak (UCLA Film & Television Archive)
David James (USC)
Samantha Sheppard (UCLA)

12:00 – 1:30 Break

1:30 – 3:00    Panel 2: Creating Black Film Style: Black Arts, Music, and L.A. Rebellion Aesthetics

Chair: Allyson Nadia Field
Daniel Widener (UCSD)
Morgan Woolsey (UCLA)
Cauleen Smith (filmmaker, UCLA alum)

3:00 – 3:30    Coffee

3:30 – 5:15    Roundtable: L.A. Rebellion: Then and Now
Chair: Jacqueline Stewart
Panelists:  Ed Guerrero (NYU); Chuck Kleinhans (Northwestern University Emeritus/Jump Cut); Michael T. Martin (Indiana University); Clyde Taylor (NYU Emeritus); Monona Wali (filmmaker, UCLA alum)

5:30    Break

7:30    Screenings: Illusions (Julie Dash, 1982, 36 min.), Fragrance (Gay Abel-Bey, 1991, 38 min.), As Above, So Below (Larry Clark, 1973, 52 min.), and Rain (Melvonna Ballenger, 1978, 16 min.)

Tickets for the evening’s screening are available for purchase at the Box Office.  TFT students, staff and faculty get in free.

Beginning in the late 1960s, a number of promising African and African American students entered the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, recruited under a concerted initiative to be more responsive to various communities of color. From that first class through the late 1980s, and continuing well beyond their college days, these filmmakers came to represent the first sustained undertaking to forge an alternative Black Cinema practice in the United States. Along the way, they created fascinating, provocative and visionary films that have earned an impressive array of awards and accolades at festivals around the world, in addition to blazing new paths into the commercial market.

Occasionally called the “Los Angeles School of Black Filmmakers,” and perhaps more frequently “L.A. Rebellion,” the group’s significance is too far reaching to be fairly contained by any one name. The exhibition presents more than fifty representative works that range from well-known films securely in the canon to other films seldom seen since school days. This series reveals a panoply of visions that do honor to individuals and the collective. Many films are presented here in new prints and restorations undertaken by UCLA Film & Television Archive.

Michael Martin, a professor of American Studies and Communication and Culture who is director of the Black Film Center/Archive, will host a public interview with Burnett at 3 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 3, at the IU Cinema.

“Consummate cineaste and recipient of a prestigious Guggenheim fellowship and a MacArthur ‘genius’ award, Charles Burnett is a raconteur of extraordinary sensitivity and among the most discerning cinematic voices in America,” Martin said. “Having Burnett on the IU campus and featuring a selection of his more notable and recent films at the IU Cinema offers the Bloomington public and campus community a rare and unique opportunity to engage with this world-class filmmaker.”

As part of the “Arriving at the Truth” film series, the IU Cinema will screen Killer of Sheep, My Brother’s Wedding, To Sleep with Anger, The Glass Shield and Namibia: the Struggle for Liberation, as well as a series of short films by Burnett. A complete list of dates and times is available at http://www.cinema.indiana.edu/. As with all visiting filmmakers to the IU Cinema, Burnett will also be visiting film production classes and having informal conversations with faculty and students.

Burnett’s first full-length feature film, Killer of Sheep, was written for his master’s thesis at UCLA’s prestigious film school.

“Subtle and distinctive for its economy, intimacy and understatement, Killer of Sheep dispassionately engaged with the marginality, estrangement and resilience of black life and heralded, in counterpoint to Hollywood’s stereotypical depictions, a ‘new realism’ in black independent filmmaking, earning Killer of Sheep an enviable place in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress,” Martin said.

James Naremore, an emeritus professor with IU’s Department of Communication and Culture, will speak before the screening of Killer of Sheep, at 7 p.m. Friday, Nov. 4, at the IU Cinema.

“One of the standard things said about Burnett is he’s the best movie director you’ve never heard of,” he said. “I think what makes him so interesting is the great integrity of his work. He has not ever made a film that you feel is calculated to make big money at the box office. And he’s really stayed true to being a filmmaker who makes films for black audiences, but he’s also very socially relevant and educational. He’s something of a poet.”

Burnett has received grants from the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts and the J. P. Getty Foundation. He is also the winner of the American Film Institute’s Maya Deren Award and Howard University’s Paul Robeson Award for achievement in cinema.

Burnett will also take part in a special screening of Killer of Sheep at the Indianapolis Museum of Art on Thursday, Nov. 3, at 7 p.m.

“This is a great opportunity for us to share Mr. Burnett with the Indianapolis community while we have him in Indiana,” IU Cinema director Jon Vickers said. “It is also an effective way for us to strengthen our relationship with the museum, support the important work that they are doing and introduce the IU Cinema and Burnett’s work to a broader audience.”

No ticket is required to attend Burnett’s Nov. 3 lecture, which is part of the Jorgensen Guest Filmmaker Lecture Series made possible through the support of the Ove W. Jorgensen Foundation. All other events are free, but ticketed.

For free tickets to the film series, visit the IU Auditorium Box Office or call 812-855-1103.

The Indiana University Cinema is a world-class facility and program that is dedicated to the scholarly study and highest standards of exhibition of film in its traditional and modern forms. For more information on the facility or programs call 812-856-2503.

http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/20142.html