Co-produced with the Black Film Institute of the University of the District of Columbia , , , From L.A. to London and Martinique to Mali. We bring you the world of Black film. Ifyou're concerned about Black images in actors and actresses that go against the grain, and commercial film and television, you already know we fill you in on the rich history ofBlacks in that Hollywood does not reflect the multi-cultural American filmmaking - a history that goes back nature ofcontemporary society. You know that to 1910! when Blacks are not absent they are confined to predictable, one-dimensional roles. You may And, Black Film Review is the only magazine argue that movies and television shape our reality that brings you news, reviews and in-depth or that they simply reflect that reality. In any case, interviews from the mostvibrant movement in no one can deny the need to take a closer look at contemporaryfilm. You know about Spike Lee what is coming outofthis powerful medium. butwhat about Euzhan Paley or IsaacJulien? Soulemayne Cisse or Charles BUITlette? Black Film Review is the forum you've been Throughout the African diaspora, Black looking for. Four times a year, we bringyou film filmmakers are giving us alteITlatives to the static criticism from a Black perspective. We look images that are produced in Hollywood and behind the surface and challenge ardinary as­ giving birth to a whole new cinema...be there! sumptions about the Black image. We feature ----------------- Interview: ------------------- 4 VOL.B NO.3 by Kalamu ya Salaam Eight-time Grammy Award-winner Wynton Marsalis recounts his experience scor­ ing aHollywood film. 2025 Eye Street, NW Washington, DC 20006 Funk in the Age of Rap - 6 (202) 466-2753 by David Mills Editor The Return of Superf/ytells us alot about African American popular Jacquie Jones culture of the moment. Assistant Editors D. Kamili Anderson Peter J. Harris SPECIAL SECTION: AFRICAN CINEMA NOW! Consulting Editor The best of African cinema now available in the U.S. Tony Gittens (Black Film Institute) ON FILM Associate Editor/Film Critic by Manthia Diawara Arthur Johnson Associate Editors Idrissa Ouedraogo'sTilai -------- -- -- ~ --- - 10 Pat Aufderheide Roy Campanella, II Djibril Diop Mambety's Touki Bouki_ - 12 Victoria M. Marshall Mark A. Reid OusmaneSembene's Camp de Thiaroye - 14 Miriam Rosen Saundra Sharp Clyde Taylor ON VIDEO by Pat Aufderheide Art Director/Graphic Designer IllAI Davie Smith The Library of African Cinema- - 16 Advertising Director Sheila Reid The first step in an exciting new project to expand the diversity of media through Editorial Intern Jane McKee 10 video Founding Editor Cesar Paes and Marie-Clemence Blanc_ - 17 David Nicholson 1985 - 1989 Paes' Angano, Angano... Tales from Madagascar Black Film Review (ISSN 0887-5723) is published Amadou Saalam Seck's Saaraba ------------- - 18 four times a year by Sojourner Productions, Inc., a non-profit corporation organized and incorporated in the District of Columbia. This issue is co-pro­ The Good, The Bad &The Sentimental ---------- 21 duced with the Black Film Institute of the University by Beth Cuthand of the District of Columbia. Subscriptions are $12 per year for individuals, $24 per year for institutions. ANative American examines Dances with Wolves and images of Native Americans Add $10 per year for overseas subscriptions. Sub­ in American film. scription requests and correspondence should be sent to P.O.' Box 18665, Washington, D.C. 20036. Send all other correspondence and submissions to From Couch to Cutting Room ------------- 23 the above address; submissions must include a by Anelle Primm stamped, self-addressed envelope. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written Psychiatrist Roland Jefferson discusses his path to feature filmmaking. consent of the publisher. Logo and contents copy­ right (c) Sojourner Productions, Inc., 1991, and in FEATURES the name of individual contributors. Film Clips: ----- 2 Black Film Review welcomes submissions from writers, but we prefer that you first query with a Books: 30 letter. All unsolicited manuscripts must be accom­ panied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope. We Recent Writi ngs on Black Cinema are not responsible for unsolicited manuscripts. Black Film Review has signed a code of practices Reviews: 26 with the National Writers Union, 13 Astor Place, 7th Floor, New York, N.Y. 10003. Paris is Burning This issue of Black Film Review was produced with Calendar:...- 31 the assistance of grants from the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, the National Endow­ ment for the Arts, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundatiqn. FILMMAKING IN gained the foundation for BRAZIL his own filmmaking. by William Moore ---------------------------- Very unsatisfied with the rewriting of Black history The 150-minute Brazilian in Brazilian film, Bulbul documentary film, made up his mind to Abolicao, is a brutal produce his own film to pastiche of interviews, right the record of Black dramatic scenes, historical struggle in his country. re-enactments, and candid The result was Abolicao. scenes of police violence. Now, despite the eco­ From 1888, with the nomic hardships Brazil is freeing of the landless facing, Bulbul is deter­ slaves, to 1988, when their mined to make the reality descendants were either and life of the more than trudging backward in 33 million Blacks in Brazil poverty or being murdered known to them, the world by .aggressive police, the and the future. He will film chronicles 100 years seek funding in Europe of racism in Brazil. Zozimo Bulbul in New York City for Festival Latino and the United States for Who could have done his next film because of such a bitter and realistic the dissolution of Em­ film, a film that unflinch­ and looking toward im­ film was censored by the brafilm, which in the past ingly unmasks the hideous proving our society on military and could not be awarded generous film racial situation of the every level, socially and shown in Brazil. Still, subsidies to Brazilian largest Black population in racially." Bulbul's film acting career filmmakers. any nation outside of The military takeover of was launched. Following Zozimo Bulbul has only Africa? Surprisingly, one the Brazilian government Cinco Vezes Favelas, he shown Abolicao in two of that nation's seasoned in the '70s brought all this appeared in the classic countries outside of actors of stage and screen, to a crashing halt. His Ganga Zumba with many Brazil-in Cuba at the Zozimo Bulbul. theater group was cen­ of Brazil's leading Black 1989 International Festival Bulbul began acting in sored and disbanded. actors. Ganga Zumba, of New Latin American Rio de Janeiro in 1961 UNE's building was burned directed by Carlos Di­ Film in Havana, Cuba, and with the National Union of down. Many of the stu­ egues, deals with slaves in the U.S. at the Festival Students (UNE), doing dents were persecuted and escaping their bondage to Latino in New York City. brash political theater, jailed regardless of their freedom in a liberated much of \Nhich was politics. interior Black nation William Moore is a critic performerl streets. Following the upheaval, (quilombo). and writer who spent two Bulbul began to work with In 1967, he appeared in years studying the culture open time,'; he recalled. a new group, Teatro Terra en Transa, a political ofAfrican people in Brazil "The time that gave birth Opinao. His first film film showing a weak on Smithsonian Institution to our Bossa Nova move­ acting role developed out president being replaced Fellowships. ment in music and Cinema of his involvement with by an even weaker one. It Nova movement in film. Teatro Opinao. It was a was from this experience BURNETT IN We were becoming aware role in a film entitled Cinco workjng with Glauber of ourselves as a people Vezes Favela (1962) about Rocha, one of Brazil's CONGRESS life in a favela (a poor great directors, that Bulbul shanty section on the side The Library of Congress of Rio's steep hills). The selected Charles Burnett's 2 film Killer of Sheep as one Film Registry. In 1989 of 25 American films to be Gordon Parks' The Learn­ WOMEN SCREEN SCENE included in the National ing Tree was one of the DISTRIBUTE Film Registry in 1990. works selected. Black Entertainment Burnett's most recent MOVIES Television is accepting work, To Sleep With An­ ROBERTSON film and television projects ger, which he wrote and Women Make Movies by Black independent directed, is his third fea­ HONORED has published its 1990­ filmmakers, directors or ture film. 1991 Catalogue Supple­ producers for its new The National Film Hugh Robertson, the late ment. Containing 38 nHW "Screen Scene" series. Registry was established Black pioneer writer­ releases, the supplement "Screen Scene" previews in 1988 by Congress to editor-filmmaker, was offers a cu rrent listing of the television lineup and include works that are of posthumously honored the best productions by the latest theatrical cultural, historical and with the premiere of his women filmmakers in the releases. Projects ac­ aesthetic significance in underground voodoo U.S., Canada, Australia, cepted by BET will be order to preserve and horror film, Obeah (1986), Latin America, Europe and shown during the "Black recognize the film legacy in December by Oakland, the Caribbean. Vision" segment of the of the United States. "This CA-based Third World New documentary titles show. Call (202) 636-2400 is not Academy Awards cinema group, There City include: Mirror Mirror, on for submission informa­ night," said Dr. James H. Cinema. women and body image; tion or write to: Screen Billington, the Librarian of Shot in Trinidad and Knowing Her Place, a Scene Producers, Black Congress. "These films ... Tobago two years before portrait of an Indo-Ameri­ Entertainment Television, represent hundreds of Robertson's death, Obeah can woman's conflict of 1899 9th Street, N.E., other films also deserving intricately weaves together identity; Women Like Us, a Washington, DC 20018.