NEDDO GlAD PRODUCTIONS In co-prod'ucllon with THE GHANA NATIONAL COMMISSION ON CULTURE DIPROCI OF BURKINO FASO NOR/WDR TELEVISION in association Iltb CHANNEL 4 TELEVISION, LONDON prBsBnlalllm by HAILE GERIIA introducing OYAFUNIIKE OGUNLANO ALEXANDRA DUAH KOFI GHANADA ,NICK MEDLEY IUTABARUKA AFEIO OIILAII wrillen, dlrecle~ &edited by HAILE GERIMA produced by HAILE GERIMA co-produced by SHIRIKIANA AINA director 01 pholography AGUSTIN CUBANO IinB producer ADA I. BABINO production designer KERRY MARSHALL music by DAVID WHITE Contents

2 Letter frolll the Editor 3 BFR on Video in Our Future

Features 6 Keeping Up With Video Technology: An Interview With Zeinabu irene Davis by Gloria Gibson-Hudson. Deparrments Video is changing the landscape offilmmaking or so says Zeinabu . irene Davis-and BFR agrees. 4 10 Film Clips On the Black Planet Productions Tip Grindstone on the Potomac, On the Road Reggie Woolery speaks with the members ofthe Black Planet Produc-, With Black Planet Productions, The tions Video Cooperative. Until media literacy is a part ofour everyday D.R.O.P. Squad, Filmfest DC discourse we will remain passive observers ofour society and culture rather than the informed, active participants we need to be. Read 37 what BPP has to say about it. Essay_ 17 Looking at Malcolm A Cultural Warrior: BY DON BELTON Belton reflects on the two'years since Spike A Conversation With Tholl1as Allen Harris Lees Malcolm X and offers reflection on BY REGGIE WOOLERY. impressions and the importance ofhealing. From the Bronx to Harvard to France and back again. Harris talks about his journey. 41 Film Revie\V 20 An Opportunity Missed: A Review of Making the Leap with Cheryl Dunye Warrior Marks BY DENISE SNEED. BY LEASA FARRAR-FRAZER Identity politics defines Dunyes,leap from video to feature film. 43 24 In Memory Frolll the Continent In Memory ofJacqueline Shearer by Kathe A Return to the Past by E. Assata Wright. To understand our present Sandler. A warrior ofthe independent andfulfill our potentialfor the future we must embrace our past. . filmmakers' movement moves onward. Haile Gerima gives the guidelines. 45 29 Calendar & Pat Aufderheide Speaks to Three Mrican Announcell1ents Fillllll1akers In Closing In Search ofan Identity... Towards Cultural Liberation...Le Maestro duQuartier Mozart. BlackFiIm ·Ui!lDU~ LETTER

2025 Eye Street, N.W. Suite 213 FROM THE Washington, D.C. 20006 Tel 202.466.2753 Fax 202.466.8395 EDITOR

Editor Leasa Farrar-Frazer

Consulting Editor A Decade ofBlack Film Review Tony Gittens (Black Film Institute)

Publisher Eric Easter This year Black Film Review celebrates its tenth year in existence. In

Associate Editor "small-arts-organization-years" that equals several lifetimes. Founded in Pat Aufderheide 1984 by David Nicholson, Black Film Review has been the only consis­ Contributing Writers tent film journal dedicated exclusively to the work and concerns of Don Belton Gloria Gibson-Hudson Black filmmakers in America and the world. Issues have featured articles Kathe Sandler Denise Sneed and interviews from around' the globe and from diverse points ofview. Larry Steele Reggie Woolery E. Assata Wright We stand at the threshold of extraordinary changes in communica- .

Art Director/Graphic Designer tions-in technique and technology. To meet the demand ofa dynamic Davie Smith industry which grows ever more complex and competitive, Black Film Advertising Director Sheila Reid Review will be revitalizing its focus over the months ahead to address the many issues and advances which will forever change the film and Founding Editor David Nicholson electronic media, while maintaining a critical and analytical edge which 1985-1989 has informed and entertained our readers over the last decade. Black Film Review (ISSN 0887-5723) is published four times a year by Sojourner Productions, Inc., a non-profit corporation organized and incorporated in You'll begin to see those changes in our 10th anniversary issue, Volume the District of Columbia, in association with One Media, Inc. It is co-produced with the Black Film 8/Number 2 to be published jn Spring of 1994, as we begin to focus on Institute of the University of the District of Columbia. Subscriptions are $12 a year for individuals, $24 per the changing role ofwomen in film, and add several new features and year for institutions. Add $10 per overseas subscriptions. Subscription requests and correspon­ columns which we hope will make Black Film Review an indispensable dence should be sent to P.O. Box 18665, Washing­ tool for those who make and enjoy films. The unwavering support of a ton, D.C. 20036. All other correspondence should be sent to the above address; submissions must include family ofsubscribers, friends and volunteers llas kept Black Film Review a self-addressed envelope. No part of this pUblication can be reproduced without the written consent of the up and running for the last decade. We extend a heartfelt thanks to pUblisher. Logo and contents copyright Sojourner Productions, Inc. and in the name of the individual each, and every one ofyou. With our vision focused toward the future contributors. and your continued support Black Film Review will provide you with Black Film Review welcomes submissions from writers, but we prefer that you first query with a information that makes a difference for many more decades to come. letter. All solicited manuscripts must be accompa­ nied with a stamped, self-addressed envelope. We are not responsible for unsolicited manuscripts. Black Film Review has signed a code of practices with the National Writers Union, 13 Astor Place, 7th Floor, New York, NY 10003. National Advertising Sales: One Media 202.466.472( Leasa Farrar-Frazer, editor

Black Film Review 2 ack Film Review on Video in Our Future

merica gets the lion's share of its illuminatirtg interviews. Achkar's very information and understanding personal work is a reflection on the life A ofsocial and cultural issues of his deceased father and his own cross­ from the electronic media. This fact cultural identity. The artist and cultural alone underscores the importance and future of Cameroon is the thrust of far-reaching implications of the video Jean-Marie Teno's talk with explosion in our country. Hundreds of Aufderheide. A music video sensibility thousands ofvideo cameras, televisions infuses Jean-Pierre Bekolo's film and VCRs are sold annually in the Quartier Mozart. He explains his vision United States turning the averag~ of the contemporary life ofyoung American into his own producer and director. Mricans. The past and its relationship to our

The growth in popularity ofvideo technol­ racial, sexual and gender issues from a grassroots future and present is the cornerstone of Haile ogy and its cost effectiveness make it a viable perspective. The members of Black Planet Gerima's work. He shares his view of the production alternative for many independent Productions Cooperative speak candidly with political implication offilmmaking and film filmmakers. While its easy accessibility gives Reggie Woolery about its direction which distribution with E.Assata Wright. Some of the America the opportunity to turn the camera on includes a national tour. Zeinebu irene Davis work of these four African filmmakers is now itself and others, the idea that everyone can be a speaks with Gloria Gibson-Hudson about the available on video which affords an opportunity filmmaker constitutes a flaw in our understand­ advantages of using video rather than film for wider exposure to a American audience. ing of the video industry's social relevance. format and the information exchange net­ Video technology holds vast promise for the Ther~ are quantum leaps between simply work-bartering for knowledge-in which she future and will continue to affect our lives in documenting one's experiences with a video is active and which reflects a community ways which were unfathomable a short decade camera and breathing life into a visually approach operative in her work and teaching. ago. With ~he restructuring ofAmerica's compelling concept that can affirm individual Cheryl Dtinye's video background is a spring telecommunication/media systems currently in and collective experiences, inspire and change board into her first feature film, a development full swing the power of the genre is increasingly people's thinking. This issue of Black Film that will not end her involvement with video, evident. Its mobility, relative low cost, and Review explores the use and impact ofvideo for but, will enhance it. Indeed, many independent spontaneity add to its appeal. However,. video a number of independent filmmakers. filmmakers use both film and video media remains flat without the skillful eye and Video affords an immediacy evident in interchangeably-as the budget allows. Identity sensibility ofan inspired videographer/ Black Planet Productions' work which pulsates and spirituality are themes which run through filmmaker behind the lens. Black Film Review with an urgency with which its members feel we Thomas Allen Harris' work. He brings to his applauds the image makers in this issue and all must embrace media literacy in our communi­ craft as a filmmaker/videographer, performance those who strive to present images humanistic ties. Video montages ofsearing images informed artist and writer a unique vision which he in impulse and global in scope. by a hip-hop sensibility set the broad param­ shares with Reggie Woolery. eters of their message which presents social, Black Film Review continues its concern with all aspects of Black film wherever it is produced. Pat Aufderheide speaks with three Mrican filmmakers in three separate and

Black Film Review 3 Grindstone on the Poogie, one of the film's central Page is extremely patient, yery Potomac characters, the film takes a hard helpful and willing to do Washington, D.C. firm Linro look at how family unity and anything necessary to get the Enterprises, in conjunction with integrity are necessary to project done," said Robinson. Makin' Movies, Ltd. Productions, maintain dignity. Interwoven "Working with her is a good are in final production on a throughout the story is Poogie's experience, one that you can feature film, A Razzin in Grind­ love for baseball, the sport upon learn from." stone. Set in the 1940's in the which he hangs his dreams. Shot on location in southern coal mining town of Written, produced and Washington, D.C., Potomac, MD Grindstone, PA, the story line directed by GeorgetoWn and South Carolina, A Razzin in centers around southern small­ University graduate and Grindstone is a result of the town justice and the Black Fulbright scholar, Wendell combined efforts of Robinson family. When a murder by white Robinson, the cast of A Razzin and Col. Jim Allen (USMC), who town bullies is witnessed by in Grindstone includes Lawanda has twenty-five years experien'ce

Co-star ofA Razzin Page. In her role as Agnes in the motion picture and in Grindstone Sanders, proprietress of The entertainment field. They pooled Lawanda Page, above, filmmaker Chicken Shack, juke joil')t and their resources to create Makin' Wendell Robinson, hang spot for the young folks, Movies, Ltd. Productions in left· she plays yet another incarna­ order to bring A Razzin in tion of her Sanford and Son Aunt Grindstone to fruition. Allen, who Esther role. Full of spitfire \and worked as a technical military issuing forth the final word on a number of subjects, she adds a driving energy to the film. "Ms.

4 Blac.k Film Review consultant for A Few Good Men the "Not Channel Zero Hits the you are forced to take a right to say what's Black and and inchon, plays Edgar, the Road" venue nearest you sobering and sometimes what's not?" head of the Black family. Of his contact Third Eye Media Group, frightening look at the conse- Johnson and his partners role as patriarch in the film he 718-789-0633. (See in depth quences of your choices. at Freeyourmind Film Company says, "This film is more about a interview with Black Planet Johnson, along with his co- were turned down by major Black man wanting his son to Productions producers in this producers Butch Robinson and studios before Gramercy grow up and be somebody issue). - LFF Shelby Stone (all Howard Pictures agreed to offer" a small rather than Black versus white University graduates), likes to budget for the film. They credit in a small mining town. The The D.R.O.R Squad make a distinction between Spike Lee's influence and father spends a lot of time and Spike Lee, who has a knack for "movies" and "films." They dedication to the project as a energy trying to ensure his son shepherding controversial film characterize movies strictly as a sigri'ificant factor in bringing The gets a good education and has projects, has done is again with business venture, while a film is D.R.O.P. Squad to the screen. - the opportunity to go a college." The D.R.O.P. Squad This time out, an artistic vision. "I don't think Larry Steele Riming, winding up in Lee is executive producer for the Hollywood is trying to make Washington, D.C. this winter, is project which was shot on Black films. I think they're trying Global Rhythms at due to be completed and location in Atlanta, Georgia. to make Model Ts," says Filmfest DC released summer of 1994. - LFF In The D.R.O.P. Squad, first- Johnson about the direction of The Eighth Annual Washington, time director David Johnson has the latest crop of movies to DC International Film Festival will On the Road with brought to the screen his vision come out of Hollywood with open on April 20, 1994. The Black Planet of a society on the verge of African-American characters. festival, featuring a wide variety Productions losing its foundations of family While Johnson admits that these of international and American "Not Channel Zero Hits the and heritage. A pro-Black projects have been well received films, will run through May 1. Road" is an eight-city national vigilante group takes it upon at the box office and credits the "This year's lineup of films will touring exhibition of documen- themselves to change the mind- kids who see them with support- provide a very exciting look at tary video focusing on contem- set of buppie-esque "wrong ing the films they like, he would the best in international cinema. porary issues in African- thinkers." What starts" out also like to see the Black film- Filmfest will present works that American politics and culture. simply as street-knowledge viewing audience become more should appeal to all local The programs in the series lectures soon escalates into sophisticated in their viewing audiences," said Tony· Gittens, include The Nation Erupts, a kidnapping and brain re- tastes so that they would come Director of Filmfest DC. community analysis of the LA washing as the D.R.O.P. Squad out in support of films such as For music lovers a special rebellions; Black Women, Sexual (an acronym for Deprogramming Daughters of the Dust or One series of music feature films and Politics and the Revolution, where & Restoration of Pride) crosses False Move. documentaries from around the women speak out on gender, the line in an attempt to create a The D.R.O.P. Squad is a film world featuring major interna- race, class and discrimination more unified and culturally that explores a wide range of tional recording artists will be within the Black Power Move- aware community. problems that face the Black presented. The films of Spain's ment; X 1/2: the legacy of Containing no sex, no car community in the nineties. In the finest filmmakers will be Malcolm, an examination of the chases, and no shoot-outs, film, the Squad uses it highlighted and back by popular "X" symbol and its meaning to Johnson describes the film as deprogramming tactics on demand Filmfest DC for Kids today's youth. both humorous and thought- crooked politicians, money- and Cinema for Seniors will also In addition to screening provoking. Starting out as a grabbing clergymen, a drug be included. For additional their work at media arts light-hearted look at the dealer and finally an ultra-yuppie information call 202.244.1278 or centers, museums, colleges diaspora of the Black experi- who creates negative images of 202.274.6810. - LFF and libraries, the producers will ence, the film takes you into the Black people for the advertising conduct media literacy "underworld" of the D.R.O.P. campaign he creates. David workshops within local Squad's headquarters, where Johnson and Butch Robinson communities drawing attention have written a screenplay that to the power of cinema and asks the question, "Who has the television in today's society. For

Black Film Review 5 KEEPING UP VVITH VIDEO TECHNOLOGY:

AN INTERVIEW WITH ZEINABU IRENE DAVIS by Gloria Gibson-Hudson ideo technology has become an American main­ stay. There are thousands ofvideo cameras in the COl11l11on household and thousands l110re sold everyday. For filmmakers, the technology offers a cost effective and increasingly accessible format for recre­ ating their visions. Zeinabu irene Davis has embraced this technology with enthusiasm and dedication. She shares her thoughts on video technology and how it impacts on the independent filmmaker with researcher and scholar Gloria Gibson- Hudson for a project on Black women fill11l11akers. Black Rim Reveiw: What are the advantages and disadvantages of shooting with video as opposed to film? Zeinabu irene Davis: The first advantage of working in video is that it's initially cheaper. You can shoot for long periods of time without having to change your tape or your setup. Second, video is particularly suited for documentary work, personal or more sponta­ neous work, or work that requires more time for gathering footage and ideas. Video gives you time to explore different kinds of sets, scenes, or situations, and to shoot more footage. In addition, depending on subject matter and access to equipment, you can usually finish a video quicker than you can finish a film. On the practical side, the equip­ ment is much lighter to transport than film equipment. Filmmaker Zeinabu irene Davis.

6 Black Film Review Ughtweight equipment actually helps you Can you take a look at it for me?" and then I. find other resources to continue their work. when you're out In the field? just send you the tape in the mail, as opposed Do you feel there is a certain video camera Yes. If you use a Hi-8 video camera you could to sending a long big reel that you might not and/or video stock that Is better than virtually shoot by yourself. You don't need to be able to have projected. So in that sense it's another? good because it can be an intimate personal have many other crew people around to shoot Not really. I don't think so. But I have to say experience. You can watch it whenever you footage and record sound. The sound on many that I haven't worked with video as much as of the Hi-8 cameras is stereo I've worked with film. and it's certainly acceptable However, I think I could make for most production work. That a general observation and means you could be a one that is people really need to person production team. It just learn to light video. Some depends on the level of video makers think that since project you're trying to it's such an easy medium, complete. If it's a short you can just throw on a light personal project you could do if it's too dark and go ahead it with a Hi-8 by yourself, but if and shoot. However, you it's a longer piece you might need to take time and light need to bring in a crew. the scene well, just like you What about the disadvan­ would light it with film. Part of tages of using video? the problem in the quality of One drawback with video is some work is that you don't that the systems still are not see Black peoples' skin being standardized. As opposed to lit very well. It's really in the 16inm and 35mm film, there lighting. I don't think that the are different formats of video quality is necessarily as ·tied such as VHS, Hi-8 video, to video stock brands as it is Regular 8, Super VHS, 3/4 with film. I've seen some inch video, and Beta~am. beautiful work done by Sometimes working between independent video artists and the formats can improve or students that really makes decrease the quality of the video look very similar to film. image. It depends on what So I think that the technolo­ you're doing. Another gies are coming closer disadvantage is it's problem­ Clora Bryant, trumpetiste is featured in the video portrait, together and people are atic to have screenings with Trumpetistically Clora Bryant. using them back and forth. large audiences because Most people I know use video video screening systems are extremely and film interchangeably. want to and you don't have to go through this expensive. And it's always difficult to match big long setup. But part of that problem is that I Do you think your work Is more accessible true colors. Unless you know a technician or like my work to be seen in large groups and marketable in video fonnat? someone who has experience with video whenever possible so people can discuss the Not really; because we as independent film and technology who can adjust the set for proper issue or the concerns the film raises and that's video makers don't have access to the home registration and for proper color balance, . not done when people are watching it video market It's really hard to break into that sometimes it can be really annoying. Video individually in their homes. However, the more particular market because you need a large exhibition does not yet have the quality level serious issue is that once the film is on video amount of capital to establish yourself. I can go that I would like. But the immediacy and impact people can bootleg and copy it This happens to my local video store and ask them to pick of it is good and much more affordable than often even though there are supposed to be , up copies of my film on tape and some of film. The other thing I don't like about video is systems that protect the videos from being them do that but it's not like I can access it's kind of a love/hate relationship in its copied. Unfortunately that takes money away Blockbuster. This issue also touches on how accessibility to people. It's great to be able to. from the film or video makers forcing them to much distribution and promotion do I put into a say, "Hey, look Gloria~ I just finished this tape. particular film or video, because that's going to

Black Film Rcyicw 7 take time and money from the next project So funded to do a children's film entitled Mother of cabins. They often lived in single-sexed there's always·a constant tension. the River, a project that's funded by ITVS, the barrack-style housing. Slaves were treated like When you're using video are you In any way Independent Television Service. I think at this property. So, one of the things that I want to limited as to the use of special effects or Is It point that it's going to be shot on video. The show in Mother of the River is the .lifestyle of easier on film? reason for this is that I have a certain amount slavery, as much as I can show in a half-hour of money allotted to complete this project. In program. With ITVS you're given a certain That goes back to a statement I alluded to order to set-up the historical period and to be amount of money to do a project and you try earlier when I said that video is cheaper..Part able to shoot on location it's probably going to to complete the entire project on that budget of the problem with video is that to be able to require me to shoot on video as opposed to That's one of the beauties of ITVS, it's a fully do some special effects, you have to have film. And ultimately the audience is going to financed project, but one of the draw backs is access to high end equipment, however the see this work primarily on television. That's that if your project initially costs more than that technology is rapidly changing. Some special how I came to the conclusion that I'll probably then YOlJ need to figure out how you can get effects that you couldn't do three years ago in shoot on video. the cost down. I really would like to shoot video you can now do, and you can do them in some of this project on location. So, I'm not your camera. You can do freeze frames, I'd like to ~k a little more about Mother of sure where I'm going yet, but I would like to strobes, and different kinds of transitional the River. Just briefly talk about what kinds shoot somewhere in the south. If that's not effects like dissolves or wipes. You can do of things artistically you hope to accomplish . possible, then somewhere in southern Illinois, these in a Hi-8 camera or a piece of machinery In that project. and what kind of video at the very least. Video will enable me to take a called a video toaster. You can use this camera you have In mind to use. smaller crew than I would need for a film. equipment for a cost that's less than three Mother of the River is based on a folktale that Aesthetically, Mother of the River has to have thousand dollars. So in a sense you have more has disseminated through the African diaspora.. an element of magic to it, because it's a access to trying out special effects. The It's a story of an old, old woman, which in folktale, and it's supposed to depict a transfor­ problem is that' as soon as the equipment folklore language would be a crone, and a mation· between the young girl who meets the becomes low-end, then, of course, everybody young girl who help$ her. In t~e original story Mother of the River, who is like a Hamet starts using it and the effects get a little cliched there are two girls, one girl helps her and the Tubman figure-not actually Harriet Tubman, but after a while. So it's up to your creativity as an other girl doesn't. And of course, the girl who someone who would be like her. In order to do artist to constantly try to figure out how to use helps her is the one who receives happiness this I would like to use some of the digital it in new ways. and the money. Marc Chery, my husband, who effect capabilities of the Hi-8 camera to convey abo~:)~dltlng? writes a lot of the screenplays that I do, and I What I'm assuming that It's a sense of magic and the sense of wonder have adapted the story. We work in a collabo­ easler, and quicker, so perhaps you can get that a child would have or anyone would have rative fashion in developing the screenplays your video out faster. Is that true? in meeting this old woman who can fly and and ideas. So this is one of his adaptations Yes. A major difference between film and video who has magic eggs to give away. I'm using from a folktale and we reset it in the Antebel­ editing is that there's more than one way to the technology to try to convey the magic and lum South, somewhere around 1850. One of edit video. With film you take the splicing block, mysticism, which I could do in film, but it would the things that we've been intrigued by is that chop it, and put tape on it That's pretty much cost more. most Americans have this kind of iconography what you do regardless of whether its Super 8, of slavery that is based on what we've seen Let's talk about a few of your other vldeos~ A 16, or 35. With video you could have a setup from Roots and Queen and other television Period Piece is one of your video projects. as simple as two VCRs in your house, editing series. But when we look at the research, the What went into the decision to shoot it on back and forth between the two. This is a long historical evidence that's available to us, it video? and laborious process, but it's cheap. Or you didn't look like that. There are many liberties Well, initially that project was one where I was could go all the way high end and use people have taken in tenns of depicting what going to have access to high definition something called the AVID or another digital slavery was like for both sides, for white people television. It was a pilot program ~here video computerized editing system. So it kind of runs as well as for African Americans. For example, makers had access to high end technology the gamut most people think plantations were really large that hadn't yet infiltrated the United States. The How do you make the decision of whether to with hundreds of slave~, but really that wasn't technology was so new and so few people shoot in video or film? Is the project the the case. The majority had fewer than ten knew how to use it that the chosen projects determining factor? slaves in a particular homestead. But one of took a lot more time than they initially thought For me, the project determines that. The next the things that struck me was in the larger I was bumped off. I liked the project so much consideration is how much money we have to plantations, as opposed to the images depicted that I decided to do it myself in a television complete the project. And then ultimately, in Roots or Queen, slaves weren't living in studio using 3/4 inch equipment. I also wanted where is the work going to be seen? I was just individual cabins, people didn't have family

8 Black Film Review to try some special effects on this project in a Sweet Bird of Youth is a music video. It try to familiarize yourself with the accompany­ different way. So I used what's called a seems a number of African American artists ing manual. You also make exchanges. I might computer paint box. It took a while to raise are moving Into the music video arena. Is show someone how to use an audio recorder, money, costing somewhere around $250.00 that what you were thinking when you were and then they might show me how to use the an hour to use the equipment and to hire the doing this piece? Or is it a music video in the latest digital video equipment operator after hours. I needed about six hours. sense of something we would see on MM Can we conclude by talking about the role of It took time and money to use the paint box No, it's not. I wish that there was a national video In the Black community? even though A Period Piece is really short. It's outlet for alternative music videos because I I have a friend, O. Funmilayo Makarah, who did only four minutes but it cost me somewhere in would really like to see them done in a very a wonderful video installation at the California the neighborhood of $3,000.00-$4,000.00. different manner. I would like to see music Museum of Afro-American History in Los There are more special effects and general videos that feature people like Sweet Honey in Angles. It was a piece that addressed the LA experimentation In your piece on Clara the Rock, Castleberry and DuPree, or jazz uprising in April 1992. The installation Bryant, the Black woman trumpet player. artists like Clora Bryant, Betty Carter, or Joe addressed the issues in an immediate fashion How did that video project come about? Henderson. I really didn't do it in the typical and it was seen by an audience including Trumpetistically was originally conceived of as music video style. I wanted to use music as the children, who might not necessarily go to see a longer documentary. There were six women thread that ran through the piece, but it's not independent film or video. I think her installa­ artists in Los Angeles who were selected by necessarily the way music videos normally tion has set up a challenge for me and the Women's Building to do five minute operate. hopefully for other African-American artists portraits of other women artists. Since I who want to work more consistently. I think How do you keep up with the technology? It basically received a commission to do that that her actually taking the space and creating seems as if things are changing at such a piece, I was able to have access to various a powerful environment was amazing. Her rapid pace. pieces of equipment Before I received the method of doing the project required very little Well, it is really hard to keep up with the . commission, I started shooting that project on long term commitment to editing or to technology because it's constantly changing. 16mm film and I ran out of money quickly. I shooting. The exhibition was very effective and But I think one good thing about being in a city think we did one shoot, which was a concert also very cathartic. I think in this way we can like Chicago is that there are different organi­ shoot, which cost somewhere in the neighbor­ use video to touch the communities that we zations. For instance, there is a Chicago hood of $3,000.00. So we decided we couldn't live in more effectively. Association of Black Filmmakers which complete it on film. Student loans only go so regularly has workshops where people can I think thafs an excellent point While you far. Since I was not able to complete the learn about new technology. A representative were talking I was thinking of the video project on film I finished it on video. from a company or organization will also workshops for children. Old you use HI-8 video? occasionally conduct workshops. It's a I think that the video workshops for kids or just I used everything. I used 3/4 inch video, I used combination of sources. As a university having access to a camcorder is very impor­ Hi-8 video, I used regular 8 video, it ran the instructor, students are always asking me, tant We have seen the rise of the twin Harris gamut I was still a graduate student, and I was "What's new? What's going on? What can I brothers whose mom tried to keep them out of basically using whatever equipment was see?" I constantly have to keep up with the trouble by giving them a video camera so they available to me as a student literature or the trade shows. Producing Mother would learn to use their energy in a different By using different equipment, was the look of the River will also help me keep up with way. I also think that access to media consistent? video technology. technology helps people learn to deconstruct images and to see why and how these images No, the look is not consistent at all, it evolved Once you see equipment at a trade show are put together. Film or video making is not a as the piece went along. But it's a short piece that you're interested in, whafs the process kind of magical thing that puts Barney on their so I could get away with having so many of leamlng to use that equipment? Certainly television set Once they know the process different styles in the piece. When I was doing once you're on a shoot thafs too late. they might learn to question what they see on it I wanted to really try to see if I could make Yes, well basically, if it~s a camera you can ask the television or in film and video productions. the piece reflect the music, that is the style of the rental house or wherever you're getting it, jazz music. I was really trying to see if the to loan it to you or to take a half day rental to effects could almost match the rhythm of her learn to use it Sometimes, you don't have to Gloria J Gibson-Hudson is Assistant Director ofthe Bldck Film Center/Archives andAssistant Professor trumpet. And in some parts of that piece I think pay for that. It depends on your relationship in the Department ofAfro-American Studies at I succeeded but -in other parts if I had the with the equipment house. The other avenue is Indiana University. This interview wits conducted as a part ofher Ford Postdoctoral Fellowship chance to do it again I would do some things to ask other people who have used it what the research on B!dck women filmmakers ofthe African differently. But that's true with every piece. tricks and what the problems are. You can also diaspora.

Black Fihn Review 9 ON THE BLACK PLANET PRODUCTIONS TIP

Interview by Reggie Woolery

• I 55 DONNA GOLDEN Black Film Review: What are your working roots media activists, the on now? wave of guerilla media Donna Golden: I'm actually ~orking on a . newest ten-minute short video about this young communicators-all apply to the members of Black woman who's very de­ Planet Productions (BPP) video cooperative. Using a tached stylistically hip-hop approach, their boqy ofwork ex­ and very plores a wide range oftopical issues: The Nation Erupts, a numb community analysis of the Los Angeles uprisings; X 1/2: and desen­ the legacy Ofmalcolm, an examination of the "X" symbol sitized and its meaning to Black youth; Black WOmen, Sexual to things happening to and around her. For instance, she's walking Politics and the Revolution, in which Black women speak down the street with friends, not talking about much and a number of racist things out on gender, race, and class discrimination within the happen to them· and they don't even pay Black Power Movement. As they prepare for their first attention to it. They are always tuned out. Later they feel these vague feelings of national tour, Reggie Woolery interviewed members frustration, confusion and anger, almost to Cyrille Phipps, Mark Abreu, Thomas Poole, Donna the point of wanting to kill somebody, but they don't know why. In a way it's autobio­ Golden, Art Jones, and George Sosa. graphical, but I'm fictionalizing things to speak more about how I see my generation. Both looking at the causes-tv, film, the way

10 Black Fihn Hevie"r it shapes your consciousness, white simulated existence. more Black people. supremacy-but also the consequences­ BFR: Coming at you from all sides. BFR: Within the last year you've been in dehumanization, desensitization, apathy­ DG: My problem is trying to avoid this work the Whitney Museum Biennial, and have (toward technology?), and the bizarre racist being seen as another "Generation X" received a Rockefeller Foundation Fellow­ context in which we live, Blacks and whites twenty-something meditation where every­ ship. You are definitely a part of the art playing off each other. one talks about their alienation or their world. BFR: Is this piece coming out of the Third boredom. The problem with the book DG: That's the thing. What's the point if all of World Newsreel Production Workshop? ["Generation X"] was that I think its different these rich people know NCZ but most Black DG: I began writing the piece there, but for Black people. Not to generalize, but I people don't? I would think that we're not wasn't able to get it off the ground. So I'm don't think for us it's as easy as going out in very successful if that continues to be the doing it independently now. Though its about the woods and thinking things are going to case. I mean, the exhibition at The Brooklyn me, I don't want it to be like the typical self­ be okay. Museum where "Black Women, Sexual reflective experimental video. I'm trying to BFR: How do you move from coming into Politics and the Revolution" showed is an make something I would want to see, film to your approach with Black Planet example. I felt like most of the folks in the something I can understand. I don't want to Productions? audience were people who are just into make a piece that in the end comes off culture, middle-class folks who just have the DG: I have to talk more about this condition. detached and exacerbate the problem. time to get involved with that kind of stUff. The only reason I went to college was my The rest either were filmmakers and artists BFR: How do you see the Idea of revolution parents forced me to go. I crossed every­ or had friends who were filmmakers. These In relationship to your work on the sel1? thing off the list that I hated and history was same people come to all of our screenings. DG: I think there is a problem if you only left. Then I thought why not film because you And that is a pretty small community. focus on the self. It isn't enough for me to don't have to dress up. Or it might be fun talk about these feelings or the lack thereof. because I might become rich BFR: What kind of interaction would you I'm a Black woman. and famous. This was the prefer? What are the shallow level I was operating DG: I find the most interesting discussions consequences of me on. from folks who don't normally see it [our not giving a shit BFR: Where did you go to work.] Even when I just show tapes to about anything? 'I school? . friends of mine. They go, 'Wow! We've never don't care what seen anything like this!' You get really DG: I was born in DC. happens to me. I donl interesting critiques from folks not, into the Which everyone now tells care what I do. I don't whole art scene. I think a lot of people feel me is the South. I went to care about other left out of this whole post-modern, post­ Columbia in New York City where I started people. I don't care about anything.' What structuralist discourse. working on commercials and music videos. are the consequences of that, living in a And I'd intern with all of these producers in ' MARK ABREU white supremacist society. And how does school and they'd hook me up with jobs. that society continue to inform my behavior? BFR: When did you Join BPP? Even after school I continued to work, doing BFR: How are you analytically going to a little coordinating, though I starved. It Mark Abreu: Around 1991. When I came in break It down between the two extremes: wasn't actually until a year later when I got there were a lot more people. Tom, George, very personal and self-reflective or involved in "The Gulf Crisis TV Project" with Cyrille. Michelle Mackenzie, Tracey, one of the first people, Jackie Dolly, and Joan Intellectualized across categories of race, some people that'l had met from Black Baker have since left. class, gender? Filmmaker Foundation (BFF), who eventually DG: I won't approach it at all from any started Not Channel Zero (NCZ), did I realize BFR: How did you become Involved? academic standpoint. It's purely experience this was something that I could actually do MA: A mutual friend of Tom and I told me and emotion. I'm trying to figure that out. I with media. It was fun. After that I joined Tom was having a screening of their first don't have any hidden theories to help me. Black Planet Productions. show, "Not Channel Zero", at Cooper Union. I The readings I've done have only validated BFR: Who do you see as your audience? wasn't able to make it but heard a lot of things I've run across. My approach is to pay DG: Audience is very important. I want to be folks talking about the show. Then one day I real attention to my life and things going on able to talk to people about this. There is not was flipping through the channels and I saw around me. I'm considering the title "Virtual any particular group I'm targeting. I would the intro. The show was interesting. At the Reality" which explains this state of extreme like as many as possible to see it. Hopefully, time I was working at downtown community detachment, perpetual boredom and tv. BPP had applied for an artist-in-residence

Black Film Review 11 there and had been turned down. When I to air out all sides of an issue-even the showed a tape at their fundraiser for the found that out I called their number from the poison, the venom, the nasty stuff. Just get it show. Coincidentally, it was the day that tv show, was able to arrange for some out so you can see it, hear it, analyze it. So Public Enemy's "Fear of a Black Planet" access to post-production equipment and clear decisions can be made about what you came out. meeting space. At that time I had completely want to keep, you want to eliminate or what BFR: To the day?I forgotten Tom was involved. I just called and you want to change. AJ: Yeah. And from that day they were Black left a message. BFR: Where do you see the group evolving Planet Productions. I was programming a BFR: I first met you at DCTV. What were to In the next two to three years? film and video series at Suny-Purchase you doing there? MA: I'm a relative newcomer so I don't know where I was a student at the time. A woman MA: I was taking a class at the Center for what the three [founders] had in mind I knew asked m~ if I had heard of Not Media Arts and a classmate of mine was exactly. But, I don't think we're reaching our Channel Zero. They had actually broadcast a working at DCTV. After the class I was going target audience. The more we get into the show by then on Nelson Mandela. During the to take an entry job in a small production alternative media, film, arts community, the Film Festival at Pratt School in Brooklyn I house. But when I went to DCTV and saw more it takes us out of our realm. A lot of us met Jackie Dolly and Joan Baker, who were my friend applying what he had learned I stay in this community for convenience. It's on the panel. That's also when I saw the had to ask myself why should I go be right there. tape, In Your Own Backyard and I knew I somebody's gopher. So I became an intern BFR: Everybody says they want to get into really wanted to get down with them. at DCTV. That's when we met. I happened to -the community" but nobody seems to BFR: What were you doing up at Purchase? be in the right place at the right time, and it know how to do It AJ: I was in the film and video department rolled over into a job. I stayed there for four MA: I don't necessarily buy that. Just look at there. Kind of that "one person of color years. the way culture is transported within the every two years" thing. There were a few BFR: Which Not Channel Zero projects Black community and you'll see that there folks I could collaborate with, but I had to have you been Involved In? are networks. Back in the day they called it learn to work independently. For the first MA: I was the associate producer for In Your the "chittlin' circuit." That circuit still exists year I basically checked out the scene, did Own Backyard, the second war show and I today. An example is the growth of mostly film exercises, and did the music for The Nation Erupts. We are hip-hop. I've seen it worked on collages, which still trying to finish the Crown Heights piece. grow from a street was a logical extension of my BFR: What's Its focus? thing into an work in photography. Before industry that Purchase I was in the Navy. I MA: Its focus is the riots, particularly the basically spread from started doing collages there. preferential treatment given the Hasidic borough to borough, community. And the role of Black people as BFR: What did folks think to the suburbs, down JJ victims because we are not a vigilant people of -Media Assassin ? It the East Coast making sure our needs are constantly says some very specific throughout the country. looked after. We tend to relax, to lower our things about accountability of both artists Now it's international. That's a circuit, that's guard. Our history should tell us we don't and the press. a network. If we put our energies into it, try have the luxury of being slack. AJ: They took it really silently. It was kind of to understand how they work, we can tap the turning point that signaled I should go BFR: Is it art, media or politics that attracts into these networks. That takes more effort on and do my own thing. you to Not Channel Zero? and a deeper commitment.. MA: Basically, it's all of those things. I see all BFR: What Not Channel Zero pieces have of these things as propaganda. I see this as you had your hand In? ART JONES an opportunity for Black people. Not to say AJ: I was coordinating producer on The that there is a quintessential Black voice, but BFR: Well, Art Jonesl You're a recognized Nation Erupts with Donna and Tom. I did a I do think there is a certain sentiment within artist In your own right How did you get segment for X 1/2: The Legacy of Malcolm X the population that never gets expressed Into a collective? on the commodification of Malcolm's image. with legitimacy or allowed to stand on its AJ: The first time we met was at DCTV's I shot some footage for Our House: Gays own merit. I see it as our duty to express grassroots videofest and I showed my work. and Lesbians in the Hood which was already that side. They [BPP] were doing this poetry/video in production when I joined the group. And BFR: To get diverse community views? thing. The second time we met, they told me for The Summa '91 Show, I did a segment on Leonard Jeffries. MA: Yes. To have dialogue means being able about their idea for a public access show. I

12 Blac.k Fihn Reyiew BFR: Within the manager. I've been collect- expectations. We're just branching out from group do you see :ing archaic old cameras for VHS to Hi-8 and we have community yourself on the media years and trying to get screenings throughout the city at DCTV, literacy tip, Into them in working order. Hunter College, NYU. There are two problems programming or BFR: I think of filmmakers with getting more into the community. The access? having to teach at first is getting access to a space. The AJ: I'm into the media colleges. There seems to be almost second is getting known so people will want literacy and access tip. I probably see Not no other way. you to come. We're still at that grassroots level where we can't put $1,000 into Channel Zero more as a production model, AJ: There is no other way. Unless you want advertising and $500 into renting a space or for getting work done and seen-something to playa long waiting game. I'm shooting quit our day jobs to be video producers. We that folks can gra.b and use to push their 16mm color reversal stock someone make just enough for us to think about how particular agendas. You can definitely get a donated, using a small crew and video for to stay true to our original intent without larger audience from public access than if sound, which I found will sync up. Unless I sacrificing the quality of the work. you screened work in your house or go the get some post-production funding, I'll be museum route. Then there's.media literacy transferring the footage to a negative using BFR: There's an interesting paradox with and media activism, the buzzwords of the an optical printer frame by frame, then public access. You can be In 300 places at 90's. cutting the negative myself. once but folks can tum you on or off as they choose but Its difficult to go to those BFR: Is there a difference between how BFR: I heard you were Inventing a process same cities and find an organization or your work gets out as part of Not Channel that will revolutionize production. Zero and how it got out in your solo space willing to sponsor a workshop. AJ: Its working out pretty well. career? And is that due to your distributors CP: It's true. We get mail from all across the or the choice of public access. country responding to our programming which helps us gauge how folks see it. It's AJ: Not Channel Zero has definitely been a CYRILLE PHIPPS still hard getting invited to those spaces. vehicle for getting the work further out there. BFR: Tell me about your time at Rise N We're really trying to figure out new and With public access there are a lot more Shine. creative ways to get the work out whether places and contact people interested in the CP: I worked at RS productions in New York its on PBS or some other avenue. stuff. For instance, we've been just focusing about three years teaching educational BFR: Let's talk about you. within New York City, but folks from around media to high school students from around the country have been coming to us. That's the city. I got the whole idea of working in CP: My work usually reflects things that something we have to contend with. grassroots video, media and media educa­ agitate me. I try to find issues people are BFR: What's happening now with your own tion from there. I graduated with a Bachelor concerned about or I feel have an effect on projects? of Fine Arts in film drama from Syracuse. the African-American community at large. Then I try to figure out how to use it in a AJ: I'm doing a portrait of six or seven Then I was a member of Black Filmmaker program. When I did my first work Respect characters who live in New York City in the Foundation and later met Tom and George Is Due, I had worked on a number of music early 1990's from the infamous "Generation who were working there. George also videos and was really bothered by· the way X", post-babyboomers who grew up on worked for a while at Rise N Shine. I found women were portrayed. At the same time I cereal and television. out we had similar ideas about doing an afrocentric public affairs show that was was also working with a lot of youth and BFR: How are you producing It? more creatively produced, youth oriented, was able to see the direct correlation AJ: Oh, you mean with no money? between the videos and their attitudes, with a hip-hop type aesthetic to it. It turned particularly how they dealt with each other BFR: That's a new concepti I heard you into Not Channel· Zero. were brushing liquid light on adhesive tape and their families. BFR: In your personal view where do you to make film stock or something. see the group going? BFR: Do you think artists and filmmakers AJ: I'm doing everything, except processing have to be conscious of who is going to the film' myself. Its funny when you take on a CP: Its hard to say. When our work first see their work? started it grew out of not having access to large film project with little or no resources, CP: Yes and I try to make responsible art. how it becomes a part of your life. Over the betacams, 16mm cameras or being able to BFR: Besides Our House.- Gays and last couple of years I've been trying to get produce broadcast-quality programming. It Lesbians In the Hood, what other produc­ into some sort of access situation. I currently was the lack of resources that created our tions have you been Involved In? work at Film Video Arts as equipment style. And folks now know us and have CP: I honestly didn't do the film Our House:

Black Film Review 13 Gays and Lesbians in the Hood just for NCZ, a viable resource for someone or some ourselves "Black Planet." The cable show . but because these were issues that were other group. It makes me realize we have to was "Not Channel Zero." Even our opening really on my mind. I was able to use the be more careful about who we align song has a.Public Enemy beat to it, which show as a vehicle to get these views out. ourselves with or we whom consider Madonna eventually coopted. Fortunately my style is similar to the NCZ supportive. BFR: Justify my video. style and I was able to incorporate a lot of TP: We showed the same work at screen­ things into the show that are tied to my THOMAS POOLE ings at BFF. After that Jackie Dolly, Joan personal vision and ideas. I've worked as co­ Baker and Donna Golden joined the group. producer, camera and editor on other BFR: Tell me about the last year or two for Later during a video screening at Hunter productions. Particularly, Black Women Not Channel Zero. College we met Art Jones who's piece Media Sexual Politics and the Revolution, Our TP: As media artist and community activist Assassin was about Public Enemy and House. On The Summa of '91 show I we've been really struggling with being in the featured rap-activist Harry Allen. He really produced a segment on the St. John's Rape spotlight. influenced our style. When he graduated Case.. BFR: But its been positive, right? from Purchase Art came on into the fold. -BFA: You work with Paper Tiger and a TP: Mostly. But I recently did a CBS report BFR: So how did all this lead to the work number of other groups. Do they allow you and got chopped a bit on national tv. It was you are doing? to express other parts of yoursel1? embarrassing. I should know better. This is TP: We wanted to do work where we could CP: Good question. Presently I'm working at what I do fo'r a living, right? They asked me express ourselves but still get shown as Paper Tiger-TV which gives me the opportu­ to talk for 25 minutes about public access easily as possible. We knew we couldn't get nity to see how to distribute videos. Its been and what it means to be an independent on commercial tv because of the need for an interesting training ground. I've been producer. But when you see the report you sponsors. We were newjacks and decided to working with my sorority, Delta Sigma Theta, hear me saying, "You can do whatever you just make something. See if it works first which has a teen mentoring program want with public access." Then you see this and put it on public access. That's what it's currently putting six teens through college. woman's butt and the story segues into a there for, right? We had nothing to lose. We were involved with a couple Black film segment on fringe public access, using my BFR: Has the group moved out of the organizations but became disillusioned with voice as a lead-in. 1/2­ broken camera mode yet? what they had to offer. BFR: They caught you. So how did you get TP: That was the camera my aunt bought me BFR: Old those experiences teach you any involved with the media? for my birthday. Its going into the Not lessons? TP: George was working at Black Filmmaker Channel Zero hall of fame. Now we're into CP: I think in general you have to be more Foundation and I was volunteering there hi-8 broken camera. Actually, the group is carefu I with the working on the newsletter. I had finished at really focusing on getting together a independent Hunter College in Black and Puerto Rican business plan and getting our work touring media studies. I liked BFF because you could hang and out there like some other collectives­ circles. You out in the office and meet people. That's more film festivals, churches and community originally how I met George. Larry Carty was there as centers, which we originally said our work is get the well. When I needed titles for the piece, I about. We plan more media literacy events sense remembered Cyrille who had volunteered her and dialogues with our communities about that computer, so it was very coincidental how the things they are watching. we met. we're BFR: So public access will no longer be the one big happy family and BFR: And the rest Is history. big priority? we're all there to help each other but its not TP: Not exactly. We had to find out if we TP: We want it all. We want to stay on public necessarily true. I think you have to be very could work together first. We started doing access because we like being on tv and its creative, very focused in your ideas and these Black Planet Production film festivals. free. Some folks say, "Ah, nobody watches goals and how to attain them because there We showed Chuck Stone music videos, Drop it." But a lot of people do. Even with the really aren't that many resources out there. o Squad Productions, Leslie Harris's trailer for irregular scheduling. There are 750,000 BFR: There are very few you can actually Just Another Girl on the IRT. At one of the households in New York hooked up with plug into. shows Greg Tate came, Trey Ellis, Cassandra cable. That's a potential of three to four Wilson came by, friends and family. We CP: On the other hand, you can end up million people. So if we're lucky, lets say 500 thought we were the vanguard. You can tell getting used when actually you hoped to be people watch one of our shows. You try and Public Enemy was very big then. We called

14 Black Fihn Revic\\T call up 500 people to come out to a and distribution we want to let people see Does BPP see themselves in this arena? screening. I think we make a good enough and hear the messages we're trying to GS: I don't know if I'd want to show that if folks are scanning they'll stop communicate. Not categorize ourselves with any and watch. that Not Channel kind of term because they end BFR: Any last words? Zero says anything up being very loaded and new but we feel TP: Hopefully we'll have our own space soon. meaning different things to our approach is a In the past NCZ has been like a rolling different people. I'd say we are fresh one which stone-wherever we laid our hat was our committed individuals who are tries to be increas­ home. Lastly, I want to give a shout out to willing to sacrifice a lot of time ingly accessible to its Deep Dish and Paper Tiger who have and effort toward making their I audience. hooked us up with space. T~e National community more able to think for itself. Black Programming Consortium pulled BFR: Without being pandering. BFR: BPP gives media literacy workshop. together some youth workshops for us and GS: Compared to the relationship most production training seminars and screening Rise N Shine who was there from the audiences have to mediamakers, our series. Explain the group's role as an agent beginning. You can't do this kind of media approach could be considered revolutionary. of change? alone in these times. We try to break down walls and demystify GS: We all must address the issue of power the people making commercial media. If dynamics and how it can be changed. If we GEORGE SOSA those people are able to empower certain are to make a substantive difference in groups with their work then we should be people's lives we have to begin talking about BFR: This year BPP Is planning a able to study what they do and make it work sharing power, that collective effort which is grassroots tour of twelve cities In the U.S. for us. going to be the foundation for major political What are your aims for this upcoming BFR: Music writer and mediamaker Dream change. I'm not saying overthrow the power tour? Hampton speaks about the state of hlp­ structure but let's access how it works and GS: Besides helping us expand some of our hop and used the term· -modem urban modify it so more people can benefit from it. services and consolidating our infrastructure guerrillas· to define today's -raptavlsts.· Reggie Woolery is co-founder ofThird Eye Media Group.

Black Filrn Review 15

THE CULTURAL WARRIOR: A CONVERSATION WITH THOMAS ALLEN HARRIS :~ by Reggie Woolery ::. . I. omas Allen Harris I~ a cultur~ warrior whose work as a film/videJ~aker, performance artist, writer and curator q,~plores Black subjectivity, the complexities ofdesire and t1fl spirit ofevolution. Harris has 7 years in television expitlence as producer for such shows as The Eleventh HourrMd Thirteen Live at WNET New York. His independen~l~orks include Allin the Fam­ ily, an experimental documefl,ary that explores Black families through the eyes o~lbfbian and gay.siblings, Heaven, Earth, and Hel~ anrli:4>erimental, narrative docu­ mentary visu-poem that chlt4 a course through Mrican, Christian, and Native Amerlt~ cosmologies, telling a tale oflove, loss and searchilt~freedom. Harris collabo­ rated with video artist Phil11!llfallory Jones on First World Order, which presents a glqlll ~erspective on the Mrican .diaspora. Black Body is a nilliqltion exploring the body's physical and psychic inter~ltb, with the legacy ofop- =~~ ~

lllan. ·~rmrmmmrttrtttt~· Harris converses with Reggliilt>olery for Black Film Reivew at Banff Centre for fIIlllll!llrts, Banff: Alberta,- Canada :}~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:t~:~:~:~:~:::~:~:~::: where both took part in a ~.itk Nomad media arts resi- dency and on a park bencq,llltospect Park, Brooklyn.

Black Film Review 17 Thomas ,Harris: Of all these Black artists don't cism in a major way and Christianity in eventually boils down to this: getting to just any of them have a vision of revolution? general. Heaven, Earth and Hell doesn't reject you and me. Back Rim Review: It doesn' sell. Christianity so much as talks about it in new BFR:Thls Is actually your fifth film/video and ways, forces of good vs. evil, forces that build My next piece, I want to do on Angela Davis... you're only 31, and also have just been up and forces that tear down, choice and nominated for a Rockefeller. Do you think ANGELA DAVISI? It's about hair, right? chance as signified by the Elegba character. you've been successful as an independent rsn't it always with Black people? In the film you seem to resist the subtext filmmaker? Aren't there 15 blo plcs and revisionist films around AIDS, as If that would limit or define (w~ispered) I think I've been successful. out on Back Icons? Audre Lorde, Malcolm too explicitly the work. Talk about that Louderl X, Martin Luther King, Josephine Baker, AIDS/HIV is always a part of the work. I talk James Baldwin, Ida B. I think I've been very successful but it takes a Wells, Langston lot to be able to recog­ Hughes, Thomas nize that. But I think Sankara. What could I've been sweating over this film for two years. I being alive and moving in you do different with thought, 'Oh my god, I can't do this film, this is a positive direction is Angela. Davis? being successful. Well, I'd take her out of some off the wall shit. Black people are going to I ask because unless that context, that 60s you recognize what context. And IJeel the hate me, white people are going to try and kill me.' progress you've made best way to do that is you can' encourage put her right back in it. others to make that I'm just really interested journey. Look at the in talking about the spirit work you and artist of revolution. Vejan Lee Smith are doing-personal journey, We talked about this worked out across the before. Once you start body, Influenced by getting too close to outside forces of revolution you start therapy, questioning getting afraid. history. I used my fear quota up And spirituality. It's hard before I was five, for life. to maintain the feeling of It's true I can be success when you get mouthing off about that next rejection letter revolution, but am I or when you hear really ready for revolu­ someone else is working tion? .Scene from Heavan Earth & Hell. on a feature project. It reminds me of the After this current film, I Last Poets In the Malcolm documentary, specifically about surrendering sexually to think I'm ready to start looking outside me but -Nlggas Is 'frald .of revolutlon.- someone and the ultimate form of surrender still keeping true' to myself. I've made my And that is exactly what The Beloved and The being death. It's not that I didn't want to . political statement in this area, most recently Lover's character are about in my current film speak about AIDS but that I wanted to make with Black Body. By the way, Black Body was Heaven, Earth and Hell, the relationship with . sure I was being critical about this interracial done on the evening of the LA uprisings. I the colonizer. You get a little crumb of bread relationship, this young Black man that goes was stuck up in this media center in an· all and you're content with that shit. But I really to Europe in search of his beauty and desire. .white town, where I was afraid to go outside, think people are· evolving out of this. It's time You have this white figure the Black male go anywhere, because I might have been for new ways of being, 'new ways of seeing. character is gallivanting around with who isn't burned in effigy for all the white folks on tv I'm really interested in how Native and African actually The Lover but someone that he has getting beat up by Black folks. It borrows a cosmologies, prophesies come into play to go through. This. massive, frightening little bit from Tony Cokes works. within that movement. Even how African symbol of whiteness· stands between me and -Black Celebratlon-? cosmologies shaped and influenced Catholi- The Lover. The final point in any relationship

18 Black Film Review Exactly, yet he primarily does a Marxist Black women's work, as well. Alice Walker and race, gender and class, where ·the absent reading of Blacks fucking up their communi­ Toni Morrison come to mind. one" Is, for those who know, the cumulative ties, but for me its more than that. What That way of speaking shows Itself In Splash. experience of black bodies from previous about the psychic legacy of oppression or the works. Right, where Little Tommy is talked about. It is ambivalence we feel toward our blackness? both a celebration and a painful memory. Interesting. In Black Body I raise the level of that Ominous and disturbing. That piece began as This Is the nature of the engagement In the ambivalence which is completely understand­ a PBS-type documentary on Black women's film, taking the audience through repetition, able when you think about what we have to hair, but then I said 'Thomas, you always [use ritual and bringing our prejudices to the fore deal with in our everyday lives. to] to play up in your mother's clothes. Who questioning our sense of possibility. Where does Heaven, Earth and Hell fit In? are you? Where are you in this piece?' So I People have told me that these sections are a On the whole I feel we Black people love constructed this fantasy sequence which later bit over-narrated, the visuals seem to work, ourselves, love looking at ourselves, appreci­ came to dominate the piece. Black audiences but the text doesn't allow enough of an ate our beauty and I wanted to show how seem to really understand that Splash. I guess exterior reading, a place for folks to insert beautiful we can be. And it ain't even about because it comes from within, that part of us something not so prescribed. Again, invoking fake hair, make-up or posing...okay, some that's fractured, torn between two different the term "narcissist." I'm aware of the work posing...but in terms of the richness of the places, two different identities. on that level as well. The same happens a bit color in the film. At least two. with Splash. I'm working on paring down the We were speaking about your earlier work. Exactly. At least two in that fissure. reliance on text. particularly Splash, and how similar Issues Wait until the community sees this new I wonder about your Investment In particular keeping cropping up. It's as though as the piece. answers. African-American and" Native ties artist you can't control the answers but and Elegba. In fact, there area number of You know that's right. I've been sweating over need to keeping bringing forth the ques­ issues that are presented in an inventive this film for two years. I thought, 'Oh my god, I tions. new way. Talk about the nature of class In can't do this film, this is some off the wall shit. TH: Yeah, you can bring up the questions, but your work and how that serves partially as Black people are going to hate me, white there is no definitive answer, only processes context for the narratives. people are going to try and kill me.' You know to those answers. That is what change really what I'm saying? Then I did it and it's totally Well, that talks about coming out of seven is. fine. I showed it to my mother and my aunt years of television and the investment of the Which Is where we started. Who's respon­ and they were in it. They may not have filmmaker. Which is as much a story as the sible for bringing forth a vision for revolution understood everything but it kept them film itself. That is the film. The investment of a or change? fascinated until the end. You have to struggle documentary filmmaker and their subject. A lot of this has to do with the marketplace with it. But you tum that around In Splash. Have which is why I personally feel the work of the You do. once"you're In something like that you had to wrestle with this class question. Black British collectives is so phenomenal. you wonder how do I get myself the hell out Initially I went to Harvard with the notion that They provided a space for change. I know of here. That's what I found Intriguing about it was going to provide me with a certain that my work and that of others would not be It You Just can't wake up and come out, amount of freedom. I was in pre-med a~d possible or seen without the work of Black you need a flashlight or something espe­ thought I'd go to an island somewhere and Audio Film Collective, Sankofa, Marlon Riggs, cially when what pulled you in are curiosity, set up a clinic. Do a Gauguin thing. Or at least Essex Hemphill, as well as Julie Dash and recognition, identification, the spectacle of I'd come out and always be able to get a job. Miss Billops. the performances. Going to these types of institutions you Camllle?1 And concern. You're concerned for the black assume you are a cut above the rest. Miss Camille Billops and her ability to go in and body in that piece and what's going to The talented tenth. look at herself, look at her family. That for me happen to him. Exactly, you assume these things, these roles. was re-e-e-ea-I Black. That was Black work. I thought about Manthia Diawara's essay on But at the same time I was very critical of the Fierce work. When I first saw Suzanne, Looking for Langston entitled -rhe Absent wealthy people there, particularly the Black Suzanne it worked me, to be able to talk about One.· You straddle this fence between fear middle class who seemed very closed­ one's pain, but in such a way that it's not like and narcissism, where one moment fear Is minded. Even though my mother taught at (singing a negro spiritual) "old downtrodden ever present then It disappears. I'm sure the Bronx Community College, we were working me, hep me..." It seems to be a very feminine critiques of the film will range from ·chilling" class people. My grandparents were domes- thing. Not just feminine but in the tradition of to ·self-Indulgent· Along that entire line of continued on page 47

Black Fihn Review 19 MAKING THE LEAP

AN INTERVIEW WITH

CHERYL DUNYE

by Denise Sneed he transition from independent videographer to feature filmmaker is a challenging one. Cheryl Dunye, whose credits include She Dont Fade, ]anine, The Potluck and the Passion, is making that stretch. Characteristic of independent filmmakers, her produc­ tions have been community affairs. In her words they are, "...not even guerilla style but process shooting." With a produc­ tion deal for her first fea­ ture filll1 under her belt, she prepares to make the leap. Denise Sneed caught up with Dunye in Ne\V York.

2.0 Black· Film Review: Let's talk about the It's a bit of both I must say. Here are real What I did for the whole identity of Black work you've done previously: Janlne, She stories that are our stories. How honest can lesbian directors is put it out there in a way Don't Fade and your new work The Potluck that be, how real can that be. It has since that drew attention. That notion of identity and the Passion. There are certain themes become a strategy. It also stemmed from the was useful for a certain period in my work. I that emerge in your work which seem to lack of money to really get the talent and a am still into it but I'm not necessarily going come from the personal honesty you use lack of access. How was I going to find the to limit myself to being the Black lesbian to express Issues relating to Identity Black lesbian girlfriend. What agency carries video, filmmaker, artist, because I'm about a politics. the look of a young marginal [woman] of lot of other things. Its shifted to being about Cheryl Dunye: Well, I've been working in mixed identity or a Black lesbian actress? So multiple identities-what are the real politics video since the late eighties. After a short I just used the family. It was about empow­ going on when you put "Black" next to stint in political· theory I decided that the real ering myself and this community. Thes.e "lesbian", then you put "lesbian" next to politicking was going to be done in media. people believed that, I was capable of doing "artist", then you put "black" next to "artist." I'm still very angry with the media but a lot the project so they worked on it. There was I'm into investigating how they come has changed. I initially got into it because no money involved. It was all done in good together in one character and one identity. Is there was a lack of representation about my faith. There's a little money involved now, in it one identity, or do we have multiple identity, a young woman identifying as a the sense that all the work is in distribution. identities. lesbian and African-American. I wanted to BFR: You and your c~aracters are con­ This new stage came from listening to my make a place for that, so I began with some stantly going In and out of character. For Mom talk to me in Mom-voice. She was minor experimentation at the under-graduate example, In She Don't Fade sometimes talking to me when the phone rang. She level. This was in 1989. characters shift. There's a woman who picked up the phone and immediately changed her voice. She hung up the phone And that was your beginning in video? played your Initial love Interest, whose real and was like before, speaking in Mom-voice. That was the beginning of Cheryl. I submit­ name must be Wanda, because someone The question occurred to me: how many ted my final student work to a couple of off camera calls her Wanda and she voices, how many masks you can put on festivals. It played a little bit ·but only under responds. right in the room, in a day and not even the guise of a student work. In grad school I Yeah, that character's name is Margo. think about it? Being able to shift is really finally turned the camera on myself and There Is this whole Interplay between who interesting. It's not just simply about the started talking about Janine, a girl I knew these people really are and who the construction of an identity that we can put a from high school. I found out from doing characters are. These elements often label on. It's very important that we know Janine that there are many stories within my merge together. what we are, that we have a community we story that could be brought to the screen or can identify with and that we are about to the monitor. After some other small There's a lot of things there that we don't something. projects I decided to turn the camera on really investigate. Especially dealing with There's a lot of empowerment about identity myself once again and did a tape called She issues of identity and in these hard times politics, especially in terms of the rest of the Don't Fade. in which I play the protagonist, a when people are striving to be who they world knowing that this identity exists. An Black woman searching for the right lover. It want to be and who they're supposed to be. example is the lesbian visibility movement was an all in the family type of production There's a lot of space and slippage between that's been happening in a lot of magazines that developed out of my community. It was that kind of fantasy and the construction of and festivals. It's extremely important for the shooting not even guerilla style but process who you really are. What is the difference world to know that, but I think it's dangerous shooting, where I would look at the footage between who you want to be and who you r~ally to limit it at just having a lesbian identity and say 'Oh, my God', I definitely need to do want to see. People don't really because there's so many other issues that this again. Looking for what works and what articulate that, at least the media has not are being ignored within the lesbian identity. doesn't work. It's a lot of fly talking, a lot of articulated that. It's created an illusion. In Nobody's talking about the Black lesbian and takes, a lot of off-camera remarks, my own these days its a total fake reality. There's why they're not in half the pictures we see. personal montage of life, ~cripted and real. nothing that's true. I want to offer a whole other kind of text. Nobody's talking about the interracial couple Your use of real people In your life as part and their problems. You know they're just .How do you Identify In terms of your of the process Interesting. It helps de­ talking about what to me is a simplistic identity politics? mystify the technical aspects of making . lesbian identity, we're all holding hands and film and video. Was that intentional or were Initially a lot of my work talked about issues we're strong, there's so many things going these the people who were accessible to of race, class, and sexuality because there on in that. For me it's necessary to not you? was little work out there by Black lesbians. deconstruct but to examine some of those

Black Film Review 21 r Ie Jines. So Potluck is kind of something and so on, making it more universal. editing facilities they broadcast your piece. A fresh that moves further away from. [Laughter] is an entry into a way to deal with lot of people whom I wouldn't expect got to e heard of the piece referred to as a difference or marginality. If people can laugh see my work and they starting coming up to comic soap opera-. What Is your response at something they can get it. It's a way to me. One day a group of young Black girls to that? connect into talking about difference. For were at a gas station where I was pumping me, if I'm able to laugh at my wounds a little gas. One of the girls said (changes her voice I'm not carrying this Black lesbian chip on bit they'll heal. to mimic a child's voice), "Weren't you in my shoulder everywhere I go. There are that video on channel 12 last week? You points when I just want to sit down in a You've shown your work a lot on the starred in that, right?" I said, "Yeah." She restaurant and not be anything but served. festival circuit. Do you think you're says, "You were good." That for me was So yes, I'm pulling back. What I really like achieving your goals In terms of audience worth 20 lesbian/gay film festivals. That this doing with my work is making our lives into composition and their responses to your one little Black girl said something to me. the soap opera that they are. Laugh at it and work? That's when you really know you've made an \ put it in cOJTIedic context. So we all can For the most part, no. But there are mo­ effect. enjoy it. I think that's the purpose of soap ments. A progra~ in Philadelphia called For the most part the audience has been an operas and that's my attraction to making Independent Images at WHYV-TV (the local intellectual, academic. The Black community my life the melodrama because it is, you PBS affiliate) has been a beautiful thing for scrutinizes seeing themselves up on a know. I think a lot of people envision their my work. They offer what's called a fine-cut screen, especially the Black lesbian commu­ lives as this kind of media spectacle or film. I award, in exchange for using their on-line nity. They're very particular about what goes see my life as a film out there of themselves and I use my life as a and they're the ones who film. I don't see any are the real cutting room problem with bringing test. When you have the that truth to the screen Black lesbian audience and adding other get it and laugh then things to it. I think you've gotten over. The that's the way history real sweat screening is and reality are made. when they're not So you think that laughing. Is it because humor makes the I'm not black enough? I underlying messages find that I still go through more palatable? all the questions that I Yes, I think humor is began with. No questions the only way. I think have been answered for that my biggest me per se, I just feel political thing is to get more empowered and my work beyond the stronger about myself. I gay/lesbian community. I think a lot of people envision their lives· as still feel a little bit To get it beyond this freakish on the outside at white academic this kind of media spectacle or film. I see my times. lesbian/gay community life as a film and I use my life as a film. I don't Because that's part of into the hands of the an audience that you people who have see any problem with bringing that truth to the want to attract? similar issues to mine. Right, right, definitely. People who are Black, screen and adding other things to it. who are Black and gay, I understand that you're In New. York working on who are Black and Filmmaker Cheryl Dunne lesbian, who are Black a production deal with and old, who are Latino Good Machine to

22 Black Filnl Rcvic"r produce your first feature film. Talk the film available. My past projects have been done I really want to get involved in the project. and what the experience Is like for you? 'with less than a couple thousand dollars. I Yvonne Welbon who did Making of Daugh­ Sande Zeig, who runs the New York Gay and naively thought that I could do it for basically ters of the Dust, and this tape called Lesbian Film Festival, approached me and nothing. I'm also applying for grants. Monique, is a really good producer. I want to said, "Are you ready to do your film?" I said, I know that Good Machine has a good use her for her production skills to helping "Yeah, sure." I'd been thinking about this reputation among the independent me to organize my stuff. My style has been project for more than a year and a half. After community nationally. Are they working wearing all the hats as producer, director,. that, I went into meetings with Good with any other African-American directors writer, crew, grip, gaffer and I can't do, that Machine. Because I usually work in this kind or producers? and don't want to do that anymore. Aarin Burch who's involved with Frameline and the of improvisational, non-scripted way, I've Good Machine is composed of the efforts of San Franc.isco gay and Lesbian Festival and been up here all summer working with them Ted Hope, who's produced all of Hal is also a filmmaker in her own right, actually to learn about scripts, writing and what Hartley's stuff with Hal Hartley and James called me up and asked if I needed any help. needs to be done in a film. I'm trying to keep Schamus, a Columbia professor who has There's a woman named Michele Crenshaw, ' my own style and not turn too commercial worked with the queer Apparatus Group, a union assistant camera technician, who but I'm definitely cleaning up my act. The which includes Tom Kalin who did Swoon worked on Home Alone and Home Alone 2. project is called Watermelon Woman, ,it's a and Todd Haynes who did Poison. James She might be the director of photography on pseudo-autobiographical documentary. In worked with Ang Lee on The Wedding my project. There's Shari Frilot who worked the script, Cheryl, the name will probably Banquet It's amazing for them to cross over at WNET in New York and Shu Lea Chang change by the time we shoot it, is an NYU that way. I don't know if that is going to who just shot a feature film. I think it is really graduate student in the film department happen with my work, it's a whole different important for sisters to help each other out. working on a documentary about a dark type of thing, but I know their name is out And I hope that everyone will get something skinned 30's race movie actresses who there and they have the attention. They're out of it beyond my project being done. became known as "Watermelon Woman" also working with Ayoka Chenzira, a Black Washington. She starred in a bunch of race woman director who teaches at City College What's next? movies as well as Hollywood-type movies. in New York. They're just starting to work Well, after I finish the project, I can have a I'm going to construct her history. I've' made with people of color. moment of silence. After i finish the project I her up to do this pseudo-documentary about And what kind of support do they provide? hope to do another project. Depending on her. the success of Watermelon Woman I'll either They have a reputation for working with no­ Is she a composite character? become an academic or I'll make another budget but they have crews, access to film. And I still want to make videos. I believe She's basically a fictional character. For equipment and other deals. Also, they help there's a lot to do in video and that there's a example, the way she got the name Water­ to distribute the work. They do self distribu­ lot to what $2.90 and a postal mailer can do melon Woman goes all the way back to the tion. That's where a lot of people lose out, in for a community that does not have access slave narrative story about Melon Woman, a the sales and distribution. If you do it to media. Right now, I'm completing a new woman who escapes slavery by hiding in the yourself you save a lot of money, that's the video project with an installation artist melon patch, which is all' again fake. She only way you can make money actually. named Christina Deustch. We took a piece was also involved in the Harlem Renaissance They offer cheap equipment, cheap film of my performance work called "Complicated as a poet for a minute. I can make her queer stock and everything that their office can Flashes," where I talk about interracial desire too, have her in a speakeasy in drag. provide relating to budget line breakdowns and combined it with interviews of each Watermelon Woman was about a lot of and all the other things I don't know about other, the Cheryl Dunye talking head type different things, she was outside the film. It's good that I'm working with them thing along with some of her own dream Hollywood community and took jobs she because my project will get done. I know text. Then I've yet to investigated my own shouldn't have taken. She's is a character that it's guaranteed as long. as I keep up the family, I'v~ talked about my community family who's kind of funny, whose life seems like a good faith and keep working on it. comedy-the sad clown, portraying the but I haven't explored my family and our I know that you're Interested In Involving marginal kind of stuff I've been talking about. connections to Liberia. What I do know is women of color in your production. Are that I definitely want to be able to make Are you at liberty to talk about the budget? there people you have been talking to? media, all kinds of media, not just film. Good Machine has a no budget production The notion of my working with the family has There's a lot for me to do. philosophy. That means budgets of $50,000 not changed. There are other Black lesbians Denise Sneed is afree lance journalist who lives and under. They try to use every resource and works in Philadelphia.

Black Film Revie"r 23 Earlier this year, Sankofawon a jury prIze• for cinematography at e Festival of Pan African Cinema and Television. For the movie, Gerima used anarrative style that occasionally ...

By E. Assata Wright

24 Black Filnl Review Alexandra Duah (center) as Nunu in Sankofa.

...borrows from the documentary shotgun, a beret, and a leather jacket, awareness and a journey home in genre. Tony Stafford, film executive, and marched in the streets with search of pan-Mrican consciousness. has said that Gerima's work Huey. I mean those in between years. Early in the film it becomes clear "smash(es) the tenets of polite Those years, those hundreds of that Gerima, who is Ethiopian, is naturalism... [and] eschews tradi­ thousands ofyears that fell some­ employing a familiar genre-the tional genre distinctions between where between the Nile and Newton. slave drama-to subvert conven­ fiction and documentary." Ironically, It's important to learn from these tional assumptions about identity, given the enduring popularity of years as well, and not just for what race, and class within our own Hollywood's N ew-Jack-Boyz-N -the­ they can teach about" the past, but society. Gerima, who wrote, directed, City-Menacing-Society genre, which also for what they can teach about and co-produced Sankofa with uses a pseudo-documentary filmic the present. Shirikiana Aina, agrees the film is less style, movies like Sankofa are at risk One might consider these points about slavery, per se, than a commen­ of being overshadowed. while viewing Haile Gerima's latest tary on contemporary sociopolitical As much as the Video Soul X feature length film, Sankofa. The dynamics. He says he wanted to use Generation may hate to admit it, theme of returning home is a recur­ "slavery as a landscape" to bring into history has taught that there is much rent one in Gerima's films, particu­ sharper focus the issues African to be learned from the past. Not just larly this one. "Sankofa" is an- Akan Americans need to address today. "I the glory years everyone likes to word that means "to return to the see the contemporary echoes of the romanticize about. You know, the past in order to go forward." Told past," he says. "Ifyou look at noble days when everyone and h~s from the perspective of a Eurocentric America as a plantation, then you neighbor was a king or queen. Or the Black woman condemned to re-live can codify the different classes and radical 60s when everybody had a slavery, the film is a story about self- interest groups within the society.

Black Film Review 25 You find overseer~, head slaves, you matically dismisses any possibility of people of color, buy 38 percent of all find plantation owners in a very arriving at a higher consciousness as movie tickets and that 97 percent of 'advanced, sophisticated way. This is a result ofwitnessing [them]." entertainment profits go to Euro­ why I felt I had to do the film. I was It's no revelation that those with pean-Americans. In a 1991 study, not interested in the past because it the greatest economic interest the National Association for the was exotic or brutal.. I was very determine what scripts get produced Advancement of Colored People interested in its relationship to the and distributed, and who gets to (NAACP) found that, "No Black present." make them. Robert Staples has executive makes final decisions in the "I think the role of the artist," estimated that Blacks, and other motion picture or television industry, Gerima says, "is to interpret those realities-in a very, very sensitive and unique way-that daily re-visit a certain society." Gerima charges that Hollywood industry movies, particu­ larly ghetto gangster films, "de-focus our mental consciousness," make Blacks feel hopeless, and do little more than show "accurately how someone got brutally killed." Indus­ try-backed films, he says, fail to offer artistic interpretations that would "[invigorate] society and make people talk and think like they never have before." Gerima says he made Sankofa to raise consciousness; the movie isn't a couch potato's silver screen T.V. substitute. "I am not a court jester; I'm not out to entertain people," says Gerima. "I don't degrade myself by telling you I made Sankofa to enter­ tain you. I made it to make you think." Gerima characterizes Holly­ wood as being more interested in bread and chocolate issues than bread and butter ones-.that is, more interested in profits than people­ and he criticizes the industry for "I think the industry backs young people who are being detrimental to Black struggles for freedom. Black audiences, he not the real intellectual, cultural, artistic products says, cannot rely on the industry to provide them with empowering of the Black community. The Black community images designed to raise conscious­ has always had a conflict, historically, as 1observe ness. Gerima P?ints out that most Hollywood movies, whose primary it, (where) white America...intervenes and recruits purpose is to make profits by enter­ taining, depress consciousness. "The their own guards." motivating factor," he says, "deter­ mines the typ~ of films they are. The Filmmaker, Haile Gerima fact that.those industry films are done for commercial reasons auto-

26 Black Filnl Review [and] only a handful ofMro-Ameri­ from dominant images. audiences. But once Hollywood cans hold executive positions with Gerima reminds one of a street realized there was a growing audience film studios or television networks." corner minister preaching the gospel of Black movie-goers, particularly in Gerima also charges that Holly­ to passersby and possible converts. Northern industrial cities, it started wood suppresses indigenous debate His arguments are not without merit. including Black actors as extras and within Black communities and he But without a congregation, a regular supporting characters in its films. indicts the industry for selecting pulpit, and, lord knows, a collection Segregation laws were relaxed some­ cultural representatives who don't plate or two-in short, without the what, thus allowing Blacks to attend challenge the status quo. These institutional support needed to theaters that had previously catered Hollywood 'approved screenwriters spread his message to a wider audi­ only to whites. Audiences and actors and directors, he says, make movies ence-his converts will be few. alike abandoned this independent that are ultimately marketed as "the Gerima himself knows this. There­ cinema to participate in the domi­ Black reality." fore it should not be surprising that nant film culture. "I think the industry backs young he advocates the re-creation of an Now the situation is reversed. people who are not the real intellec­ independent Black film industry. For Hollywood rediscovered Black tual, cultural, artistic products of the although Gerima doesn't believe people in the mid-1980s, and since Black community. The Black com­ Hollywood-made movies can chal­ then it has built up a sizable Black munity has always had a conflict, lenge us to re-think power relations, audience that will turn out for any historically, as 1 observe it, [where] he says he doesn't believe the indus­ Spike Joint or ghetto vehicle released. white America intervenes and re­ try and "the system" are omnipotent. Gerima is advocating that contempo­ cruits their own guards. But there Rather, he places the responsibility rary independent filmmakers "recap­ have ctlways been Black Americans in for recuperating Black images where ture" this Black audience that has [the arts] that are nurtured by the he says it belongs: in the Black ~een nursed on Hollywood's ocular community. And the industry is community. junk food, and nourish it with a new incapable of allowing those artistic, Some critics have argued that it is film culture. intellectual sensitivities emerge to necessary to have both independent Before we can accomplish this, he help the society to transform. What Black cinema and Hollywood insid­ says, we must divest ourselves from they do is pre-empt those local, ers, but Gerima says industry-made the cinematic standards that have nurtured African Americans and movies will forever be compromised been set by Hollywood. As movie bring in their own version. They do in ways that betray our history and audiences we have grown accustomed the same with Black leadership and identities. The only alternative, he to the dazzling, and expensive, film they do in the artistic world." says, is to create an alternative film sets and special effects that come The films these movie marionettes culture which allows us to recon­ with million dollar, big studio make, Gerima says, perpetuate the struct our image of ourselves and our productions. Similarly, we have same Tom n'Jemima stereotypes relationships to one another. This bought into the star crazy mentality Hollywood llas produced in the past. alternative film culture, Gerima says, which uses big name individuals to The only difference today is Black could help us to transform ourselves draw ticket buyers to the box office. directors have been hired to add a and re-work power relations within Gerima says these are among the little masala to the mix. Gerima says the society. superfluous frills we must abandon if that, "industry-backed African­ Not that we didn't have an inde­ we are to develop an alternative American films are nothing but tour pendent film industry before. Recall­ Mrican American film culture. "We guides for the non-resident Black ing an earlier period, Gerima points have to build up independent institu­ bourgeoisie and white Americans to out that African Americans allowed tions, however modest and small visit the 'terrible' Black community." Hollywood to suck the life out of the they are," Gerima says, "and build Clearly, Gerima intends for Black independent film industry of them-forever-without any doubt Sankofa to expand the boundaries of the 1920s/1930s. By this time Black that they are legitimate. We could Black representation in ways that theater owners and filmmakers, build an amazing culture of (film) include more diverse, realistic, and notably Oscar Micheaux, had built a production outside the existing empowering images and, in turn, successful industry that was fueled system ifwe wisely invest in each enable Black audiences to see them­ and supported by Black actors, others' dreams and visions." selves in new ways that are divorced businessmen, newspaper critics, and Specifically, what Gerima is

Black Filrn Review 27 calling for is a low budget film radical, militant African American assessment of Sankofa. White audi­ culture that is informed by culture he found when he arrived, ences in Europe have appreciated the ·minimalism. For example, during the and was deeply influenced by the film and found it to be relevant to making of Sankofa, when he realized Black arts movement that was afoot their lives. For example, German additional money would not be at the time. "It was the best time, audiences have discovered that forthcoming, Gerima couldn't pay historically, for me to have come to Mrican American slavery is a fitting his film· crew the wages he wanted, America," he says. "The Black metaphor for other institutions and couldn't employ certain color dis­ movement engulfed me and hijacked patterns of behavior based on oppres­ solves and special effects, and an me out of my submissive colonial sion. Because of Sankofa sstrong entire section of the film had to be position. Out of that I developed themes of identity, resistance, and cut. He also had enough money to [the theme of] 'the return,' the struggle, Germans are using the film make only one print of the film. 'journey.' So, all of my films are as a point of departure for debates on Despite these sacrifices, Sankofa, and about returning. I am deeply in­ ethnic relations there. other low budget films, demonstrate debted to this period of Black Finally, and perhaps more impor­ that it is possible to abandon the American history." tant to Gerima, people ofAfrican slick, glossy Hollywood aesthetic in He carried this radical sentiment descent also are claiming the film. favor of one that speaks more di­ into UCLA, where, as a film student, Gerima was moved to tears as he rectly to the needs of Black people. he began researching and writing recounted stories of how Black Mrican Americans would embrace Sankofa. Throughout the 70s and people were embracing the film. For such a film culture, Gerima says, if early 80s Gerima wrote (and re­ example, after a screening of Sankofa mobilized by our cultural and wrote) the script, and traveled. to the in Ouagadougou [Burkina Faso] , political leadership. "When a film southern U.S., Venezuela, several Black audience members sent comes out (critics) are there to' review Martinique, Cuba, and Jamaica to him a taped message telling him how the film. Very sad, because to me learn about American slavery. In much the movie meant to them. A (the .critics') role should always be on 1985 he began raising money to preview screening of a draft version a continual basis. People who write produce the film, which he com­ of the movie elicited a similar re­ about film should always be there, pleted last year. sponse from a predominantly Black alert, activating the community­ Thus far, Sankofa-Gerima's audience at Syracuse University. And even in the absence of films. It is the eighth feature length film-has been Gerima's film crew told him, after he making of a movie, creating the shown in Germany, Italy, Burkina apologized for not being able to pay conditions to have more movies Faso, New York, Los Angeles, them more than he did, that simply being made within the Black com­ Washington, D.C. and Baltimore. working on Sankofa and learning munity, that makes the community By the end of this year, Gerima plans more about African and Mrican be activated. Similarly, organizations to show it in Ghana, South Africa, American history was payment like the NAACP, instead of begging Tunisia and Los Angeles (again.) enough. Hollywood, could do fundraising for Hopefully, when another print of the Gerima says the approximate 20 Black artists in the Black commu­ movie is made, it will circulate to years it took to make Sankofa, with nity. Instead of marching, they could more cities and audiences. Until the resulting struggle and sacrifice, put their money in Black films." then, Gerima is entering Sankofa in would not have been worth it, "if For Gerima, Sankofa-which he selected film festivals around the there hadn't been a community of considers to be "a turning point and world and is distributing the movie people who said, 'Okay, you made an. amalgamation" of everything he to local markets himself. Not surpris­ this film. You brought it here and has done to date-represents his own ingly, all the major U.S. film distri­ from here we will take it.' Things like consciousness raising experiences and bution .companies have labeled this make you say, 'I'll make my next "homecoming." The son of an Sankofa a "Black history" or "Black film, too. I'll regroup.' What makes insurgent Ethiopian playwright, culture" movie-which they appar­ you want to make another film is the Gerima did a stint in the Peace ently consider to be stigmas-and way [your films] materialize at the Corps, which he calls his period of have refused to distribute it. end. The feedback, the embracing is "volunteer colonialism," before Interestingly, white Americans in what repairs you." coming to the u.S. in the late 1960s. the Hollywood film industry estab­ E. Assata Wright is a free lance journalist in He says he was influenced by the lishment appear to be alone in this Washington, D. C.

28 Black Film Review IN SEARCH OF AN IDENTITY

by Pat Aufderheide

Guinean David Achkar's father \Vas a' dancer in the Ballet Afticains during the continent-wide indepen­ dence lllovelllent in the 1950's. A prominent figure in the struggle to assert Mrican independence, he became part of the Guinean . movement led by Sekou Toure, then a champion of pan-Mricanism. MaroufAchkar in prison writing the journalfrom which much ofthe film stext is drawn.

Black Fihn Review 29 Upon independence in 1958, David Achkar: I've lived in Paris for 17 years. Would you say the film has a theme or MarofAchkar, ofGuinean and Over the last ten years, I've been a writer message? -Lebanese descent, became UN ambas­ and actor for plays and an assistant to a My film is addressing the question of what sador and moved to New York with Black film director from Martinique living in we in Africa did with the independence that his metis (mixed culture) wife and Paris. That's how I got acquainted with we fought for. It's also the story of a man family. David was born there in 1960. filmmaking. being held, and seeing his whole political In 1968, MarofAchkar was recalled past,. and trying to find out what went wrong by the increasingly brutal Sekou and why. Toure regime and disappeared into How has the film been received In Guinea? the notorious prison Camp Boiro. His It was well received. People who have been family was exiled, unable to know his in Camp Boiro or who had relatives there fate until many years later, after say, "That's what it really was like." There is T oure's death and the institution of Sekou Toure as the myth and Toure as the more open government. leader. At the time we needed strong myths, Allah Tantou is a film that probes because otherwise Africa never would have the officially forgotten, and, by liberated itself. But at the same time we have reviving old controversies, raises to see the reality of the failure of the system, urgent questions about human rights the dysfunction, in Guinea. Those who had and good government. It is also an been tortured wanted to see the torturers intensely personal film. and the effect of torture. I didn't want to do Achkar's film is a set ofmeditations that-it was too easy. The only way you hear on the world his father knew and a re­ that in the film is from the voices of people imagining ofthe past, including his crying. If you understood the language, you father's experience under torture. To When I fir$t went into the could hear they're crying out for their accomplish his visi

30 Black Film Review e ls~on) e Olce FroIn L.A. to London and Martinique to Mali. We bring you the world of Black fihn.

Ifyou" re concerned And, Black Film about Black images in Review is the only commercial film and Black Film Review takes up magazine.that television, you already where the likes of Variety and Premiere brings you news, know that Hollywood reviews and in-· does not reflect the leave oflbecause it gives me in-depth in­ depth interviews multicultural nature of terviews aboutfilm that's happening in the from the most contemporary society. vibrant movement other three quarters ofthe world-tIle You know that when in contemporary Blacks are not absent rnajority ofthe world film. You know they are confined to about Spike Lee predict~ble,one- but what about dimensional roles. You Euzhan Palcy or may argue that movies Julie Dash? and television shape Charles Burnett or our reality or that they simply reflect that reality. In Soulemayne Cisse? Throughout the Mrican diaspora, any case, no one can deny the need to take a closer Black filmmakers are giving us alternatives to the images look at what is coming out ofthis powerful medium. produced in Hollywood and giving birth to a whole new cinema...be there! Black Film Review is the forum you've been looking for. Four times a year, we bring you film criticism ~------I I 0 YESI Please start my subscription with your next I from a Black perspective. We look behind the I issue enclosed Is $12. . surface and challenge ordinary assumptions about I 0 YESI Please send me a trail copy, enclosed is $3. : the Black image. We feature actors and actresses that I Name ------~------I go against the grain and fill you in on the rich I A?dress ------I history ofBlacks in American filmmaking-a history ~~~i======zip-======that goes back to 1910! : Clip and send this coupon with payment to :I I Black Film Review, PO Box 18665 I Washington, DC 20036 I TOWARDS CULTURAL .. LIBERATION

by Pat Aufderheide

Cameroonian filmmaker Jean-Marie Teno's latest film, Afrique, Ie Ie Plumerei, a feature-length documentary and Archivalphoto from colonial Cameroon in a pointed critique ofneocolonialism, is designed to pro­ Mrique, ]e Te Plumerai. voke and to outrage. The title, "Africa, I'll pull out your leading to economic domination for the feathers," is a twist on a French children's song. whole century. All the people who chal­ The filmmaker employs image essays; eloquent, sardonic lenged this were crushed. I got money from all over Europe. Ninety­ pastiches of colonial and independence-era newsreel foot­ five percent of the funding comes from age, and even a fictional character to make his points. He Europe. France provided a third of the budget; the German TV channel ZDF and recalls fallen heroes of independence such as Lumumba the government of Italy; and the Unitarians, and Nkrulllah, and relllinds the viewer of the fierce ideals and I got lots of other little grants. It finally cost 1.6 French Francs, between of early independence movements. He explores the interi­ $250,000.. $300,000. ors ofembassy and national libraries, universities and What is the basic theme of your docu­ m~ntary? booksellers' stalls to take the pulse of national culture. .I think freedom is also taking care of Teno, who has made several short and politically pointed ourselves and the community. The problem in Africa is that we are not controlling what films before this, has made a career ofsorts out ofsaying we are producing in our community. We the impermissible. have so called political independence but when you do not have economic indepen­ dence you are not really free. Now thirty Black Film Review: How did you get such But when I got home journalists were years later you have young people who are a controversial film made? _'embattled, and I said, "How can a state be trying to control education, the culture, the Jean-Marie Teno: In the beginning, I ,so violent?" The film became more and economy; we are looking for cultural proposed to look at how writers have more political. I realized censorship was liberation. My own contribution is my. own resisted throughout history in Cameroon. always to secure cultural domination, history, the stories I heard.

32 Black Film Review Has your film been seen in Cameroon? what these people are doing to their Congo. Nkrumah, all these people were No, but it has been shown in other African countries," but "these people" are the crushed. Nkrumah said that you can't keep . countries. It is not a simple situation. You complete creation of the colonialists. All the these [colonially drawn] boundaries. He was don't have the government on one side and . people who could govern were killed. In a panafricanist; he knew boundaries would the people on the other. You have people Cameroon, the people were killed in the lead to the fall of Africa again. The dignity who are working on one side, and the vast 60s or expelled, like Lumumba was in of a Black man in America would ultimately majority of the people on the other. Sometimes you can have the government supporting you. The situation is very .complicated, especially now. Maybe in the months to come the film will find a venue in the Cameroon. What's been holding It up? The problem is that the film was going to be looked at by the Board of Censorship. I sent the film to the board and I haven't had an answer. Censorship has existed since colonial times, not just on film, but also on the press, and every aspect of life. You use some fictional characters In the film, do you not? The TV executive is an actor. The rest are real people. Are you making an indictment? When I'm making a film I'm not trying to blame one or another person. I'm reading history from a personal point of view, personal as an individual and personal from the Southern point of view, because history is always been written by the winners, I'm proposing a completely different point of view. The winners are not all from the European or American perspective. To have many people identifying themselves so "Now we are creating first class citizens in the North [of strongly with the winners, even in the south, and not looking at what they really Cameroon] and second class in the South [of are, is such a tragedy. Cameroon.] I read an article published in the New York Are you concerned that you might, with your critique, be giving ammunition to the Times saying that it was time again to restart colonial­ enemy? ism because African countries couldn't govern them­ One of the great successes of the colonialists was to be able to cut across selves. Africa has never been free, and nowhere in the the boundaries and to create a small class of oppressors, who would carry on their job world can the Black man really exist" when they retired. And what is marvelous now, is that at the end of the century they Filmmaker Jean-Marie Teno are putting all the blame on this little class they created. -They are saying, "Look at

Black Fihn Review 33 lead to the dignity of a Black man in Africa. Cinema and Television Festival (FESPACO), In the African cinema you have many And yet people now think these ideas are the biennial film festival in Ouagadougou, tendencies. There are people who come to ,irrelevant. Burkina Faso] with this film, and it was cinema to make money. These people are Now we are creating first class citizens in amazing. My main concern was to have the being encouraged by foreign countries-this the Nort~ [of Cameroon] and second class film shown. is a new form of African cinema. Now we in the South [of Cameroon.] I read an It was made with a lot of French money. No are getting a lot of support from Europe article published in the New York Times one knew what the content would be. from people who are supporting films, saying that it was time again to restart When the film was done I got a lot of having festivals, talking about African films, colonialism because African countries criticism-We gave you money to make a and are responsible for the orientation of couldn't govern themselves. Africa has movie about literature, and it came out our art. They can say, "This is a wonderful never been free, and nowhere in the world different." But I had a good friend who was film." Sometimes they come to consensus can the Black man really exist; we have responsible for the Canal France on a particular film, and suddenly a young always been linked to a dead end. My film Internationale, which provides free images guy who is just coming in, they can make is a reading of history that urges us to to Africa. The guy was very impressed by him somebody. They can orient African film avoid becoming a dead end. the film. He bought it and sent it to all toward a dead end. How did your political convictions affect Francophone TV free. I was happy, because You have people making resistance-I am your stylistic choices? I wanted the film to be shown. It was very happy making resistance. I didn't come shown on African television, except in to making movies to make a living. I could When I started this film I knew exactly what Cameroon of course. So in Ouagadougou have been an engineer. But I want to I wanted to say. I wanted a subjective people from all over said, "We saw your express ideas and to challenge through , camera, a personal thing. I had all these wonderful film on TV, it's so important for films. The ,challenge is not making money; elements and wondered how to make them us that the film is made now." It was becoming famous is not a goal for me. I am all work. I started thinking back in my screened during FESPACO, and although it against camouflage. Do what you want to childhood; I saw myself as a hybrid. The had been shown on TV three weeks before, do and don't represent African cinema. Indian influence, the American comics I it was packed, and they gave it a standing There's so much bullshit about so-called was reading, the French education in ovation. "African cinema" by people who don't know school, the fact I wasn't growing up in my I didn't expect a prize. At the Carthage Film anything about cinema and who are native village but a new growing town-how Festival, there was a jury of civil servants, manipulated and don't even realiz~ it. was it possible to give a sense of and someone came out and said, "We had postmodernity? It just came and the film is How are they manipulated? a big problem with yours because you completely me in that sense. I didn't have For instance, there are films that support a criticized so many people who give money to answer any stylistic questions. It couldn't very superficial view of Africa. People say, to Africa. It was a very important film and be another way. "This is young and new and challenging we personally agreed with it, but we're civil issues," but the real issues are not there. You place a heavy emphasis on cultural servants." colonlallsmB The real issue is a complete cultural Why did you decide to make a feature­ decolonization. We are reaching the end of The culture is the first thing that the length documentary? the century, and people are dying and colonialists seek to destroy to exploit the It's as 'long as it is for many reasons. dying, and it's almost as if we are not country. They know the culture is the only Originally German TV wanted a 90 minute concerned. It's unbelievable. way of resisting. People have no refer­ film. In the process of making the film, to ences, so they can be culturally dependent What are you working on now? really take my audience through all the and always identify themselves with the. And I'm going to work on a big project on issues I really had to go that long. I don't colonialists. The colonialist can give them African-Americans. I want to investigate think the film will be distributed in the the image of who they think they are. They what we have in common, what the future cinema. I'm working to spread a message, achieved that perfectly in Africa. Some is going to look like, and what is our a way of seeing things that is different from Africans don't even realize they're talking common destiny. Where is the word what is shown every day on TV, and also about themselves when they refer to other "African-American" leading us? What will have people rethink a lot of things. I'm Africans. Now the work is to decolonize the next step be? I'm trying to collect making subversion. Africa culturally. elements with my Hi-B. If my material turns Do you think of your work as part of a What has the reception to 'the film been? out well, I'll transfer it to 16mm. movement or tendency In African cinema? I went to Ougadougou [for the Panafrican

34 Black Filrn Rev'iew DE MAESTRODU QUARTIER MOZART by Pat Aufderheide From the fingerpopping opening to sly ending glance, it's neighborhood's cooperation and his mother's cooking. clear Quartier Mozart is a movie with attitude, and its "I've tried to make a popular film director has it, too. Cameroonian first-time director Jean- . where people can see themselves and be amused," he has said. "Mrican Pierre Bekolo takes the historic lllandate ofMrican cin~ cinema won't have a future, ifit does not reach an Mrican public." Indeed, ema-to tell our ovvn stories to ourselves-and llloves it one serious problem,with the largely inside youth culture. This is a bold move, in a cinema that sober Mrican cinema historically has been reaching a public otherwise lured has rarely even acknowledged the existence ofsuch' a phe­ to the theater with international nOlllenon. popcorn epICS. Popularity doesn't have to equate In a foreign-but-familiar 'hood, Quartier Mozart, a sassy with inauthenticity. As the film young vvolllan-with the help of a local sorceress-enters signals with its title-a name Bekolo meant to signal cultural interpenetra­ the body of teen hunk My Guy (Serge Amougou), who tion-these days Mrica participates in a world culture targeted at restless proceeds to romance the highly hormonal cop's daughter youth and registering their justifiable (Sandrine Ola'a). Along the way to true love, the film discontent. A film like Amadou Seck's recent stops to pay calculated attention to the hypocrisy and Saaraba expresses, on behalfofyoung corruption ofthe adult world and the uneasy ways varying people, frustration and rage at the moral legacy ofsocio-political corr'up­ traditions mix, as well as to provide crisp moral messages tion. Quartier Mozart doesn't get on the need for respect and self-respect. Lessons about mad. It gets even. The film earned the Prix Afrique du womens rights and dignity . Creation award at Cannes (the Cannes jury called it "audacious"), a prize at are driven home with par­ Locarno in 1992, and a special jury ticular enthusiasm. prize at the Montreal Film Festival, also in 1992. Quartier Mozart has the earnestness and defiance that has characterized Black Film Review: How did you fund this recent Mrican-American, youth­ film? oriented, independent work, and that Jean-Pierre Sekola: I applied to the Centre also informs the kind ofmusic video Nacional du Cinema in France, a national that comes with a conscience. It is, organization which controls cinema [produc­ then, no surprise that Bekolo has tion], to make a short, and they gave me the worked making music videos and shot initial $30,000. In Paris I applied to the the film on a budget the size ofsome Ministry of Corporation and the ACCT, an productions' light bills ($300,000)­ organization of French speaking countries, Filmmaker Jean-Pierre Bekolo thanks in part to his own including Canada. I paid for part of post

Black Film Review 35 production. The prize in Cannes helped get not just using western culture and tradition in Africa but in French. So that liberated me. money to finish paying for it. It cost for whatever you want. I was shocked by the way Africans speak $300,000. The problem is that we have to How has your family reacted to the film? French in the movies. It's like in books and spend money in a very expensive plac~, not believable. Vulgar speech has a kind of My father is a police chief, and also a because the money is to be used in France. strength, and the logic of people is in polygamist so it was a bit tense. I was language. Also, Spike Lee's Gotta Have It How was the film received? involved in that conflict for a long time, and Inside Guerrilla Filmmaking taught me a lot In Cameroon, I had two kinds of, reactions. it was very clear that 'I took my mother's about production and how to deal with many The petit bourgeoisie said that the language side. Maybe that's why I made movies, problems while preparing the films. In my of the film was street language and that it because if I were on good terms with my film I also used this technique of talking does not give a good image of Cameroon. father I could be an engineer making a good straight to the camera, as a kind of state­ But at the same time common people liked it salary. But instead I went to work for lV. ment. I wanted people to stand in front of a lot. I was happy with the reaction in Are other directors searching for ways to the camera and say, "If you don't like it, too general, from all kinds of people, not just describe the emerging culture of young bad." My film is not a political film,· but I want young people. The reactions are quite similar Africans? to put this kind of freedom into people, this internationally. There's no place to confront our work at all, kind of strength. And how has distribution been? to talk about aesthetics. There's the So you see this film as a political act? It went into commercial theaters. There are Panafrican Cinema Festival [FESPACO] in I feel very politically involved. That's why I many theaters in Cameroon. In Yaounde Ouagadougou every two years, but even wanted to make films. I had to take a there are ten but there are two main ones. I there we don't talk much about aesthetics. position very early against something at have had a hard time distributing the film. You don't, see yourself participating in a home. It gives a style to what I'm trying to The' theater owners buy a package for the larger trend. do. All the style in Quartier Mozart came whole year so they. weren't interested in Old you think In terms of working on a new from that political aspect. I didn't want it to [showing] my film. I didn't ask them to buy it, aesthetic when you were filming? be a message movie. I wanted the style to just to share profits. So I showed, Quartier To begin with, I didn't want to work with carry the message. I want it to be entertain­ Mozart in Yaounde in the town hall for two people in France that most Africans work ing. Charlie Chaplin was one of the most weeks. It was a special arrangement from with. It has an influence on what you are political filmmakers-·funny and powerful. the government; they took 10 percent. It was ·doing. I'm also not in the tradition of African a good deal for them. I had a little theater in Do you have plans for another film? realism. I studied cinema at school, but I Duala, Cameroon's _second city. I don't know right now because I have no don't feel that's what drew me to film. I money to produce at the moment. But it's What did you mean to say with the title? spent two years working as a video editor in not a matter of the subject. I'm interested in The problem I wanted to talk about in the Cameroon lV, which only started in 1985. a film biography of [deposed and assassi­ film is Africa adopting western culture, which After that I had a workshop for two years in nated Burkina Faso political leader] Thomas is now part of African culture. When you say Paris doing all kind of work in video. I edited Sankara, which should be done as soon as "Quartier Mozart" in Cameroon no one thinks a lot of music videos. Then I decided to possible. Children are in the street struggling about the composer. The title is just to point make my own script. for change. What they miss the most is out the way western culture is now a part of Do you prefer to work In film rather than people who believe in them, and Sankara ours. The way people are dressed, the video? was one of them. I don't think because one French they're speaking is a French with an I don't see a big di~erence between TV and man died the experiment was a failure. African language structure underneath it. film. I just used the medium to tell a story. There's something in movies that can restore You also seem to have a critique of elders But in the film I tried not to just tell a story. I this hope for change. The problem is that it and of some traditions. wanted to tell a story in a very elliptical way, will be an expensive film and I don't want to I don't think that polygamy is something bad, with a lot of editing and music, to let people do it in an underground way. but I'm trying to· sbow problems with the way feel happy, like when we are listening to a David Achkar, Jean-Marie Teno andJean-Pierre it is practiced. For me the police chief record. Do the Right Thing helped me with Bekolo spoke with Pat Aufderheide at the [depicted in the film] is taking advantage. the dialogue in my film. I was used to Washington, D. C International Film Festival (Filmfest DC) in April 1993. Aufderheide is an Young people are criticizing the hypocrisy of working with video and images, but I didn't assistant professor in the School ofCommunica­ their elders. Polygamy was not traditionally know how to write dialogue. Then in Spike tions at The American University School of practiced like that-you c?uldn't throwaway Lee's film I saw three men talking, "I gonna Communications and a senior editor ofIn These Times newspaper. a woman like that. In general, I just want us do this, I gonna do that, when you gonna do to make clear which way we want to follow, what?" And that's the same thing you'd say 36 Black Film Review all my life I've known these men!... angry torsos daring crackers or a fool to look the wrong way!no just look a funny way & it'd be over or just begun

from Ntozake Shanges poem/introduction for Robert Mapplethorpe s Black Book, photographs ofBlack men

pike Lee's Malcolm Xbegins with the image ofan outsized SAmerican flag seared by flames that slowly form an X. The flag burning is intercut with a replay of familiar footage of Black motorist Rodney King being beaten by the four white policemen whose acquittal on brutality charges by an all-white jury sparked riots. The sequence unfolds with the mystery and pathos ofa visual spell, as though Lee has found the formula for rearranging the iconography ofanother Black man's body being brutalized by whites. This time around, the familiar spectacle LCOLM

Black Film Review 37 not only looses its power to terrorize who wouldn't sellout. The ~aking of Lee-part Baldwin, part Baraka, part and "warn" Black spectators but his story even as a Hollywood product Don King. "I was born to direct this serves to vindicate us. Rodney King is could not afford to look like a sell picture," said Lee. eel would have beaten as the flag that has come to out. From the time Worth set out to killed anybody who stood in the stand for white hegemony burns, buy the rights to the Malcolm X story way." With regard to the remark, he branded with the sign for our 400 in 1967 until he made the deal with named Warn~r head-whitemen Terry year witness in the N ew World. I was Lee, ,he's been sensitive to the issue of Simel and Bob Daley as two so gripped by this opening credit Black credibility with regard to this motherfuckers who could have been sequence, played agai'nst a soundtrack project. With Baldwin, in any case, dead behind the making ofMalcolm. ofa Malcolm X speech, I almost Worth bargained for more than he Spike Lee is a new jack race man. And forgot to notice an important name gained. Papa don't take no mess. missing from the credits: James All the gargantuan seductions of But Malcolm Xis not Mr. Baldwin's. Hollywood were not enough to Baldwin's movie, however, it's Mr. The basis for Lee's Malcolm X compromise Baldwin's vision. Lee's. Ultimately, Lee's aesthetic movie is a James Baldwin script that Worth's difficulties with Baldwin control does not at all equal knocked around Hollywood for were drawn around Baldwin's de­ Baldwin's. Baldwin knew Malcolm, twenty-three years. The project began mand for aesthetic control over the for one thing. Baldwin and Malcolm at Columbia Studios in 1968, when picture. Since he was the only Black X met first in the 50s and over the Baldwin was the most famous Black person involved with guiding this years forged a friendship in which writer in the world, the jazzy zeitgeist important Black cultural story to the there was apparently a great deal of capable of turning the making of screen, Baldwin felt he had the mutual love and respect. Malcolm X "Malcolm X" into an event. During cultural prerogative over Worth and called himself the Black revolution's an era in which it looked like progress the studio executives. Moreover, warrior. He named Baldwin the poet. to have Sidney Poitier starring in the Baldwin saw the project as his own At the heart of Baldwin's script is a pallid integrationist bedtime story, opportunity to bring the moral sensibility seeking to reveal the Guess Who sComing to Dinner, subpoena he had already advanced humanitY of Black masculinity and Baldwin checked into the Beverly through his novels, essays, and plays the beauty, even saintliness, of Black Hills Hotel and began a battle that deeper into the American conscious­ people. There is a homosocial tension would end in his angry departure for ness via a popular film. Baldwin that rides through Baldwin's script Europe and the project being shelved strove to bring a degree of Black and culminates in a scene in which an indefinitely by it's producer. The subjectivity never before attempted in Egyptian man instructs a naked project moved from Columbia when Hollywood. Worth wanted a picture Malcolm in wrapping the traditional producer Marvin Worth, a former that could do all that as long as it Isar and Rida cloths in preparation for New York jazz act handler and Jewish made a lot ofmoney. He and Baldwin pilgrimage to Mecca. hipster, turned the project around at argued constantly about aesthetical Warner's. At Warner's Worth set matters. Baldwin thought he could aside Baldwin's script and turned to make a non-Hollywood movie in na telephone conversation with other projects including Lenny, The Hollywood, bargaining on the politi­ Spike Lee a few months before Rose and a documentary on Malcolm. cal spirit ofthe times and the good­ Ithe theatrical release of Malcolm will ofWorth. Before Baldwin walked X, I cited the Egyptian scene, asking out on the project, he told Worth, Lee ifhis rewrite of Baldwin's script n 1990, Malcolm X was finally "You can make my picture or no had preserved Baldwin's sensibilities. going up under the direction of picture." Worth brought in a white Lee shot back, "I'm not gay." INorman Jewison. While working writer, Arnold Perl, to rewrite I don't know what Lee meant. on Jungle Fever Lee successfully Baldwin's material. The day Baldwin Perhaps it was only another ofhis lobbied to take Malcolm X away from rode to the airport, fed up and rhetorical wisecracks, yet I couldn't the white director, arguing that the furious, there had been talk ofmaking help but think suddenly with grief project required a Black sensibility. the film a vehicle for former football and astonishment about how much of Worth, still the film's producer, star Jim Brown. Baldwin's prodigious human gift has agreed. Malcolm X was a martyred It's taken all these years for Black been shunned by Black/people, both hero, the epitome ofthe Black man culture to produce a figure like Spike during the author's life and still,

38 Black Fihn Rcvie\\T because ofcontempt for the particular better use than Lee. There's the exploit Malcolm. He is attempting to sexual witness Baldwin bore. shimmering original score by Terence "save" Malcolm with the only means While Malcolm X was still in Blanchard. The cinematography is he has. In failing to sensationalize the postproduction, long before rumors miraculous, playing with every criminal element ofWest Indian hit the street that Lee had cannibal­ conceivable color and temper oflight. Archie's world at this juncture, ized the Baldwin script and was But there's also the ridiculously over­ Baldwin articulates the knowledge tur~ing in the sort ofhigh-entertain­ choreographed dance sequence at the that though Black male identity itself ment value film Worth wanted all Roseland Ballroom replete with darky has been historically criminalized in along, Gloria Baldwin, executor ofher hi-jinx supplied by Lee's anachronistic America, Black men have risen and late brother's estate, was repudiating Shorty and an overweight Black girl continue to rise to make extravagant .the whole affair. She petitioned an who's staked him out as her main gestures oflove and grace. The arbitration committee ofthe Writer's squeeze. And there's the trivializing Malcolm wh~m Baldwin portrays in Guild to remove her brother's name depiction of interracial desire, the this scene is gentlemanly, quixotic, from the Lee/Worth movie. "They are sensationalized drug use and crime. and winning. Baldwin constructs not doing Jimmie's script. I don't Russian Roulette, anyone? The film Malcolm, from West Indian Archie's blame Spike, he's young," Gloria would have been worthy ofall the perspective, as a living jewel in the Baldwin told me late in the spring of hype about telling Black kids to cut rough. All the qualities that would in 1992. She won the arbitration. I was school to see it had Lee spent more time seduce the attention ofthou­ thinking about all this, of course, time portraying Malcolm's self­ sands ofpeople around the world when I saw Malcolm X for the first education process in prison beyond toward his message and presence are time. his writing out every definition from there in that one scene. Malcolm X is a big Hollywood Webster's Dictionary. (Although picture, done in the epic narrative admittedly the scene where Malcolm style-epic as in gargantuan. Lee's and another Black inmate look up the orth wished to disrupt films are not known for their thematic words black and white in Webster's is the scene with the subtleties and during all of the film"s a show-stopper.) And where else but imposition ofa sudden three hours and 21 minutes Lee in the imagination ofthis film's bar fight over something as niggerish makes little time for them here. I director would an army of exquisite as stepping on another man's shoes hasten to add Malcolm X is a great young Black women array themselves and bad-mouthing somebody's Hollywood picture. This is easily the in 1950s Harlem to hawk blow jobs mama. Malcolm has to make an most lavish Hollywood treatment I've to dirty old white men in broad impressive macho display before he seen afforded a Black subject since daylight? can be taken under West Indian Berry Gordy bought out Paramount Archie's mentorship. This, Worth and released his own cut of Lady Sings reasoned, would make the scene more the Blues. Before that, there are no ne scene Baldwin and entertaining. Lee not only goes "Black" films to compare with Lee's Worth fought over was the Worth's way with the scene, but goes Malcolm X except possibly Cabin in O one where Malcolm meets even further to ease any sense of the Sky or Stormy Weather. the seasoned racketeer West Indian homosocial desire by imposing upon Malcolm Xhas everything one Archie for the first time at Small's the scene a barmaid named Honey. could want of a Hollywood epic. It Paradise Bar. In Baldwin's original We see Honey-not West Indian has a tour de force performance by its treatment, as well as in his restored Archie-witness Malcolm bludgeon star, Denzel Washington. Washington script published under the title One another Black man with a whiskey has the dapper grace and physical Day When I Was Lost, Baldwin uses bottle for talking about his Mama. magnetism of a sexy, young Sonny the scene to portray the making ofa West Indian Archie's looking at Rollins. In many of the scenes I felt I bond between the elder player and the Malcolm at this point is only implied was watching not an actor but an adrift country boy dazzled by the big when he orders Malcolm a drink from acolyte possessed by Malcolm's spirit. city. In Baldwin's hands, the scene is his table. As if that didn't effectively Denzel Washington may prove to be really about West Indian Archie's love eradicate any trace of a homosocial the most engaging Black male actor for the young man, whom he sees a subtext from the scene, Lee has since Paul Robeson, and no director son and a younger version ofhimself. Malcolm join West Indian Archie's has yet put Washington's talent to The older man is not casting to table, drink in hand, introducing

Black Fihn Review 39 himself disrespectfully, "...and I ain't conspicuously guards his body from By the time the film was creaking no pun.k " the spectator's gaze. Malcolm shuts into its final 20 minutes, 1 felt I'd had Lee's- film constantly favors a Black offthe shower and walks closer to the enough and was about to step out hyper-masculinist aesthetic over the camera undercover ofthe wall and when an image of Baldwin flashed on homosocial sensibilities of Baldwin's puts on a towel. Baines enters. the screen in a flurry ·of 1960s docu­ film treatment. In scene after scene, 1\1alcolm begins with Baines as he mentary images. But the image passed Lee manipulates the symbols ofBlack does with West Indian Archie, with quickly, and then contemporary Black machismo without interrogation as protestations that he's not a punk and vendors proffered Malcolm X caps, T­ when at a rally the camera rests on a not to be "hyped." Baines tells shirts, jackets, and jewelry on Lenox giant placard reading WE MUST Malcolm that Elijah Muhammad can Avenue -as Ossie Davis' voiceover road PROTECT OUR MOST VALU­ free Malcolm from prison--from the the crescendo. Then came the school­ ABLEPROPERTY--BLACK prison ofhis mind. There's a real room of Black boys and girls shout- WOMEN and then moves on. Or tension between the scene's verbal lng:. "I'm MalcoImX" . when pronouncements are left un­ discourse about a Black messiah and Aretha Franklin sang over the final challenged about the inferiority of Black liberation and the over-stylized credits. 1 sat in the brightening Black women's power and place. Or spectacle ofWashington hiding theater. 1, wondered how come no when white women are summarily behind a towel. It is an instance of white kids got to shout, "I'm equated with pork and cigarettes. stasis in which the film both denies Malcolm X" in the finale? Or at least Most intriguing, for me, however, is and contains charged issues of Black one Native-, Hispanic-, or Asian­ the film's unwillingness to interrogate male sexual identity and the racial and American kid? In a film that works as the fact that Malcolm X's assassina­ gender politics oflooking. Whatever hard as Lee's to hardsell its subject to tion was fratricidal; that, perhaps the Lee's intention may have been here, a popular audience, its unconscio­ hyper-masculinist values ofthe Nation the scene re-inscribes the Black males nable to snub so large a segment of ofIslam contributed to the murder of body as the site oftaboo, subjection that audience. White people paid their this Black jewel by his own brothers. and self-surveillance. $7.50; they ought to get to be More over, it is well worth interrogat­ Malcolm X, too. It's hard to tell if this ing to what extent the hyper-mascu­ film finds its apotheosis in Black pride linity ofcontemporary popular Black rom the stunning opening or commercialism. male culture contributes to the cr~dit sequence to th~ big fi~ish Baldwin loved Malcolm X. That current pandemic of Black male FwIth actress Mary AlIce turning love is evident on every page ofhis fratricide. How many Malcolms do into activist Nelson Mandela, Lee lays script. It is hard to tell ifLee has any we lose daily in the streets ofLA, down scenes like the tracks on a Stevie more love for Malcolm X than Newark, the Bronx, Philadelphia, and Wonder double album. This is a highly Madonna has for Marilyn Monroe. DC as young brothers act out the programmatic and entertaining film. It Lee is an artist, entrepreneur, and original gangster fantasies of overpaid is great pop art. But like other pop young warrior who seems invincible. rap icons and Hollywood and 1V products its messages are often written He seems poised to spin endless superspades? Without vision the people in cartoon strokes. Scenes ofthe KKK commercial successes. Who but Lee perish. Indeed. are almost direct quotes from similar has proven himselfso profoundly? Six There is an awkward scene in the scenes in epic from Birth ofa Nation to important films in nearly as many prison shower where the Black inmate Lady Sings the Blues. Such scenes in years. named Baines shames Malcolm about Malcolm X seem obligatory rather than his use ofhair straightener, exhorting revelatory and do nothing to explode him to embrace Islam. In the Baldwin already-familiar ichnography. Lee till, for all its overtures to script, Malcolm "luxuriates himself in quotes the melodramatic Lady Sings the commercialism, the verdict the shower," then stands wrapped in a Blues again when he depicts Malcolm Son the film's ultimate "suc- towel talking easily with the other X about to be let out ofsolitary cess" is not yet in. Malcolm X needed Black prisoners until the conk he has confinement after a harrowing stint. to outsell the low-budget Boyz in the laid in his head begins to heat~ Lee The scene looks remarkably like the Hood to legitimize big budget Black plays the scene this way: the camera scene where Diana Ross busts her movie-making to people like Simel pulls back from Malcolm- standing relaxer kicking dope on the floor ofa and Daley. As ofthis writing Malcolm beneath the shower. A half-wall padded cell. continued on page 44

40 Black Filnl Review AN OPPORTUNITY MISSED: .~ A REVIEW OF a---/ WARRIOR MARKS

by Leasa Farrar-Fraze.r

ice Walker has lent her name and celebrity to the cause ~against female genital mutila­ tion, also referred to as female ci~cum- cision or excision. The documentary film Warrior Marks, with director/ B filmmaker Pratibha Parmar and '" Walker as executive producer, had its Washington, D.C. premiere at Howard University's Cramton Auditorium in November, 1993. What should have been a stirring screening and discussion, however, missed the mark. Warrior Marks opens with Walker's testimony ofher own personal trag­ edy: as a child she was blinded in one eye as a result ofthe hostile actions of her elder brother. She speaks elo­ quently ofthe emotional alienation within her family and the sense of betrayal by those she believed were her protectors. Her brother was not reprimanded nor was she given the emotional support needed for the trauma she endured. Walker used this , event in her childhood as an analogy for and point ofdeparture into the discussion ofthe centuries old tradi­ tion offemale genital mutilation which is practiced in parts ofMrica, the Middle.East and· India. As a point ofdeparture, it served the film well. The only problem is that Walker One of the more compelling interviews was with doesn't "depart." She stayed ce~ter stage through the remainder ofthe Aminata Diop, a young woman who fled her film while interviewing a number of Mrican women and political activists. home in Mali and sought asylum in France rather The actual act-of circumcision was than submit to genital mutilation. continued on page 42

Blac.k Filrn Revie"r 41 MISSED, continuedfrom page 41 which is not unlike our traditional Instead, the viewer was left the symbolically depicted by footage ofa Mrican American culture. Only impression that these were merely skillful dancer which was interspersed through proper Introduction, time, primitive old women who obtain throughout the film. sincerity and reciprocation does one sadistic pleasure from administering Alice Walker is one ofAmerica's gain access to information. And then, this agonizing pain. brightest and most illustrious writers. not secret knowledge. A genuine, IfWalker had taken herself out of With great wisdom and insight her nonjudgmental desire to understand Warrior Marks and allowed the brilliant works have explored the all aspects ofone's inquiry is also women to speak for themselves, while dynamics ofwomanist thought and essential. When more light could have trusting the audience to come to its ideology. The literary world is richer been shed on the elderly women who own humanistic conclusion, it would thanks to her contributions. A film perform the surgeries, the opportunity have made a much stronger statement journalist she is not. The subject of was over-shadowed by the film's and ultimately a better film. The pain female genital mutilation could be mission to expose the practice as ofthese women and their struggle to served better with a journalistic barbaric. Sadly, the humanity ofthese eradicate this practice speaks volumes approach that explores all aspects of elderly women was not shared with without the kind ofcelebrity endorse­ the practice. As I watched Warrior the audience. I say this not in defense ment used in the film. Nothing could Marks I wondered, where was the ofthe practice, rather in acknowledg­ do more to engage the public and hard hitting footage? Where were the ment ofthe bond among women. As world health organizations than the interviews with the young girls as they Walker pointed out in a television voices ofwomen resonating with the were being taken to the surgery hut or interview, these elderly women, who anguish ofthis monolithic abuse of upon their return? Where was the have themselves been mutilated, were their human rights. male voice? Any male voice. Why born into this ·vocation. They are as Yes, a film exposing every painful wasn't I exploding with rage? Perhaps much victims ofthis oppression as the nuance and shameful statistic affecting the key lay in the subhead used on the women they mutilate. In the same the lives, and in far too many in­ flyer for the film: "a gentle film-a interview, Walker described a power­ stances the deaths, ofwomen sub­ harsh reality." There is nothing gentle ful moment when, while sitting with jected to genital mutilation needs to about female genital mutilation. these women, she comes to this be made. However, Warrior Marks is One ofthe moore compelling realization. It was a transformative not that film. At its very best, with interviews was with Aminata Diop, a moment oftruth for her that should the continued efforts ofsuch organiza­ young woman who fled her home in have been captured on film and shared tions as Forward International and the Mali and sought asylum in France with the audience. It would not have Inter-Mrican Committee, it will put rather than submit to the procedure. I detracted from the urgent message of female genital mutilation in the was touched by her tragedy and Warrior Marks but would have further forefront ofworld attention. Alice appalled to learn that her father illuminated the cultural complexity of Walker and Pratibha Parmar must be divorced her mother, believing her this practice for the women involved. applauded for a courageous first step. responsible for his daughter's actions. It could have perhaps begun to But it may be more effective in the Diop's sadness and alienation are real, explain their complicity, which is one long run for celebrities to cut the as is her wish to return and rescue her ofthe more perplexing mysteries of apron strings, work diligently behind sisters who remain in Mali. I found it this practice for the Western observer. the scenes and allow the causes they disconcerting to see support to take center Walkerholding and stage on their own. pattjng this woman's If Walker had taken herself out of Warrior Warrior Marks hands, the audience's constitutes a missed emotions were being Marks and allowed the women to speak for opportunity. It is a film unnecessarily manipu- that obscures the fact lated. . themselves, while trusting the audience to that the lives of the There is a pre­ come to its own humanistic conclusion, it women at stake are scribed protocol for ultimately more impor­ obtaining information would have made a much stronger statement tant than Walker's own in traditional Mrica personal vision. and· ultimately a better film.

42 Black Filnl Revie\\T NOVEMBER 30, 1946 - NOVEMBER 26, 1993 by Kathe Sandler

acqueline Shearer was part ofan important wave of Mrican-American women independent filmmakers who began making low-budget films in the late 1970s against great obstacles­ ground breaking films that redefined Mrican-American life and reality and went against the grain. Her peers include Michelle Parkerson, the late Kathleen Collins, Ayoka Chenzira, Monica Freeman andJulie Dash, to name a few. I met Jackie at a gathering of independent filmmakers, where she was the only other Black woman present. I had heard about her film A Minor Altercation (1978), a drama about the Boston school-busing crisis, and I took the opportunity to intro­ duce myself. We both were distribut­ ing our works in the (now defunct) Black Filmmaker Foundation's Distribution Services. We made an immediate connection that resulted in friendship, a working relationship and

Jacqueline Shearer

She believed in mentoring, and she brought people of color, particularly Black people and Black women along with her at every stage to work in domains that had formerly been reserved for white men.

Black Film Review 43 a process ofmentoring from which I passion. It was her feature film in MALCOLM, continuedfrom page 40 was able to benefit. Down to earth, development about the first union of Xhas yet to exceed Boyz in receipts. It modest and generous with her time, Black women domestic workers back was thought that the revived interest Jackie helped me in a myriad ofways. in the 1930s that she managed to ofthe 1993 Academy Award season I sought her advice about fundraising, scrupulously research and write the might push the film into the vicinity directing crews, realizing my vision in script over many years. Though she ofits expected receipt revenues, but film and infusing my work with an never had the opportunity to shoot given the Academy's decision to once oppositional perspective to the Addie and the Pink Carnation, at 46 again snub Lee, those expectations mainstream despite external resistance she managed to leave behind an were not fulfilled; In any case, Lee's ofall kinds. impr~ssive body offilms including current deal with Warner Brothers Jackie provided me and others with two ofthe programs for Eyes on the should find him moving along with a solid base ofaffirmation and en­ Prize IIthe PBS series on the Civil new projects for some time. Fortu­ couragement. She had penetrating Rights Movement- "The Keys to the nately, this isn't 1978 when the insights into situations and people. Kingdom" and "The Promised Land" supposed poor box office ofthe She was a low-key, intensely focused (1989). She also directed, produced Gordy/Universal 23 million dollar person with strong progressive politics and wrote a stunning portrait ofthe production of The Wiz had critics about race, class and gender. She was first troop of Black Union soldiers hanging death crepe over Black acutely aware ofthe barriers facing all during the Civil War-- The Massachu­ cinema, as Motown made prepara­ people ofcolor and women in film. setts 54th Colored Infantry (1991) for tions to move into television. Lee is Her'artistic vision incorporated her the PBS's "The American Experi- too strong to go out that way. There political and social views throughout ence." is very little chance that 15 years from her career. She believed in mentoring, Jackie had been a kind ofgod­ now Lee's producti

44 Black Film Review > CALENDAR

APRIL APRIL 8 Festival. Fee is $60 per entry. Submission the media arts offilm, video, audio, and deadline is April 8. multimedia on a local statewide or regional, The eighth annual National Educational and national basis. Up to $175,000 will be Media 1v1arket, a leading international FOR MORE INFORMATION awarded. Grants will generally range CONTACT: market for non-theatrical and educational between $2,000 and $10,000. Submission film, video and multimedia programs is Kate Spohr deadline: April 8. now accepting submissions. This one-of-a­ National Educational Media Market kind market brings together viewing and 655 Thirteenth Street FOR FURTHER INFORMATION AND deal-making in Oakland, CA each spring. Oakland, CA 94612-1220 ELIGIBILITY REQUIREMENTS PLEASE CONTACT: Distributors, institutional, broadcast and Tel 510.465.6885 NAMAC consumer markets worldwide. Films, Fax 510.465.2835 videos, interactive media and works-in­ 655 13th Street, Suite 201 progress are welcomed. The National Oakland, CA 94612 Educational Media Market will take place APRIL 8 Tel 510.451.2717 May 18-20, 1994 at Oakland Convention The National Endowment for the Hu­ Center in Oakland, CA, as part of the The National Alliance for Media Arts & manities invites proposals to plan, script National Educational Film & Video Culture requests submissions for the 1994 and produce a broadcast quality film on the Media Arts Fund to support excellence in subject ofAmerican pluralism. Proposals

Black Fihn Review 45 APRIL 30 MAY 17-22

will be judged on the depth and creativity The New York Film Academy and the The 1994 National Educational Film & of the approach, the demonstrated artistic Black Filmmaker Foundation is sponsoring Video Festival conference takes place in and technical capability of the applicant, scholarship contest for young filmmakers. Oakland, Ca. More than 50 award­ and the quality of the scholarly collabora­ The contest offers youths an opportunity to winning documentaries, features, anima­ tion with the filmmakers. Submission speak out against senseless violence by tion and shorts will screen. Educational -deadline: April 8.' asking them to design a sixty second film distributors, producers, publishers and commercial on the theme "Stop the developers will be in attendance. Seminars FOR MORE INFORMATION Violence:' Shoot Film, Not People." will cover a wide range of topics of impor­ CONTACT: Participants must submit either a one page tance to educational media. National Endowment for the Hu­ treatment or a two minute VHS tape for manities their proposed commercial. The first place FOR REGISTRATION AND Division of Public Programs winner will receive a $5,00'0 scholarship to PARTICIPA·TION INFORMATION CONTACT: Humanities Projects in Media, Room the New York Film Academy. Submission National Educational Film & Video 420 deadline: April 30. 1100 Pennsylvania Avenues, N.W. Festival Washington, D.C. 20506 FOR MORE INFORMATION 655 Thirteenth Street CONTACT: Tel 202.606.8278 Oakland, CA 94612 Stop the Violence: Shoot Film, Not Tel 510.465.6885 People 510.465.2835 APRIL 22-24 Fax New York Film Academy/Black The 2nd Annual Vintage Poster Art Filmmaker Foundation JUNE Convention & Auction takes place the Tribeca Film Center weekend ofApril 22-24 in Cleveland, Ohio 375 Greenwich Street JUNE 1 at the Sheraton Airport Hotel. Dealers New York, NY 10013 CALL FOR PAPERS: A special edition of from allover the world will be on hand to Research in Mrican Literature will be' buy, sell and trade movie memorabilia. devoted to Mrican Cinema. Richard Allen, noted film poster historian

and author, will speak on poster history PLEASE SUBMIT ENTRIES and art. An auction of rare and original DEALING WITH AFRICAN FILM OR movie ~tems begins at 6:30 p.m. on AFRICAN FILM CRITICISM TO: Saturday, April 23. Admission Kenneth W. Harrow is $8 a day. Dept. ofEnglish Morril Hall FOR.MORE INFORMATION Michigan State University CALL: East Lansing, MI 48824-1036 Last Moving Picture Com­ pany 2044 Euclid Ave. Cleveland, 0 H 44115 Tel 216.718.1821

46 Black Filnl Review IDENTITY, continuedfrom page 31 up with two hours of film. The film ratio was W~OR, continuedfrom page 19 one-to-one. I kept the film in a drawer for a tics, immigrants from the West Indies. I was same time, the memory is still based on year, trying to raise money. I went to born and raised in Bronx, New York, with a some real image, and that is what gives us Amnesty International and they said I Bronx schooling. I hung out with people within the courage to go on. shouldn't have made a film about my father. that grouping. It wasn't until my third year of Was It difficult working on your own I thought that was nonsense. No death is college that I went to Europe. I wanted to get more beautiful than another. I made the film father's letters and Images? past Harvard, its promises and the 10 year look like a short feature and $30,000 from When I first went into the letters I knew it plan it set up for folks, down to the minute- . the French Minister of Cinema. They thought was going to be painful, and then something job, child, etc. I'm saying you can have the happened that I'm still questioning. I I was making a feature but the script was education, or the status but you still have to . pretty much what you have on the screen. unplugged something in my head. Suddenly I negotiate the spaces. Difference was still an And I got money from the French Ministry of was just working on documents; it was no issue in how I spoke. When and how do I Cooperation. Guinea wanted to back the film longer my father. I was just like any speak? Or with people who would say you scriptwriter who was saying, "This will work but didn't have any money, so the money don't speak like someone from the Bronx. and this won't." And then I made the film. I came from France and was routed through Which is what communications and my early shot it with my cousin [in the role of my Guinea. They gave $50,000. The whole thing work in television was mainly about. Was I father]. He didn't even see the home movies, came up to $80,000. There was a lot of speaking or could I speak like a white boy? although I asked him if he wanted to. On the work on the editing, and we had to blow up But no, who's language was it? set, we didn't have enough film to make the 8mm. The language of power. mistakes, to do three or four takes. I said, Do you think video is an option for this I think it was the language of power, which is "Do it the way you want to because we don't kind of production? about information and what you can project. have time." And then a year passed. I felt I 8mm works better than video. These films Even before my four years at Harvard, I knew would only exist once I had finished the film. are 30 years old, and there's not a scratch from a very early age I was an artist, a Then we had a meeting with the editor and on them. [Video] is easy to work in, but the sound mixer. The sound mixer, a woman, performer, growing up with my brother Lyle image is flat. It's good for news, but cinema and cousin Peggy acting out. All in the Family said, "Let your mother come." I work with a isn't news. lot of.women, the team was 90 percent shows this. What are you doing next? women. When we watched it, my mother I can definitely make the connection cried a lot. She has the film and has a I'm working on a feature, the story of a -between your childhood. right past all the private projection two or three times a musician, supposedly myself. I work in school stuff. to your film/video work which month. It is like therapy for her, and now it's studios as a musician; I sing and produce seems to be as much about play as therapy for my brothers and sisters. In records for fun. It's the story of someone seriousness. But also that pivot word making the film, I wanted to meet my who lives in Paris, is caught in a jam and freedom that you use. father's ghost. But unfortunately I didn't meet goes back to Africa. He goes upriver to -find But its always about social freedom, right? anything. So I know my father's part of me his mythical roots. The river is used in a but I'm just doing what comes next. semiological way; he's going up the river of That depends. What do you mean by his memory, to solve the problem of being freedom? Why that word? Do you find any political resistance to your considered black in France and white in film? For me its a freedom from internal coloniza­ Africa. I don't want to deal with political tion, freedom from fear, freedom to be able to I don't think I have anything to defend. In issues. I just want to have this homeboy recreate myself, in a new way. To get up in Guinea they know they [the government] going to Africa. He's falling in love with a the morning and say, 'I'm going to be so and can't stop me because- they will have the part of himself, but there's nothing to find, so today.' That's what freedom has been whole country against them. People know and that's the problem with it. I had som'e about. Franz Fanon talks about this: "In the I'm harmless. The government paid for my people tell me it's very frustrating because world in which I travel, I am endlessly re­ plane ticket to come here; they knew it was he doesn't find anything, and I say, "That's creating myself." I've felt like I was stuck here. a controversial film. the frustration I live." Allah Tantou is Like I couldn't get my boundaries, like I How did you finance the film? frustrating too, because the last words are, couldn't feel or know myself. Even now I'm It was made in two stages. The first stage "'It was on a day like this that I was shot in going through an immense' amount of stuff only cost $4,000 which was family money. 1971," and then it ends. Why do I end films just to create. People contributed for free, because I was like this? Maybe it's because I'm a sad letting them express themselves. We ended person.

Black Film Review 47 .The hottest 10 year 01 in the movie industry.· .(apologies Anna Paquin)

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