The mission of The Department of Afro-American Research Arts and Culture to identify the global significance of the creative contributions pioneered by an international diaspora of Blackness
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Friday, March 16, 2018

Child of Resistance (1973)

















Starring:


Storyline
Inspired by a dream director Haile Gerima had after seeing Angela Davis handcuffed on television, Child of Resistance follows a woman (Barbara O. Jones) who has been imprisoned as a result of her fight for social justice.  In a film that challenges linear norms of time and space, Gerima explores the woman’s dreams for liberation and fears for her people through a series of abstractly rendered fantasies.

Wednesday, March 14, 2018

The Vanities (1946)












Starring:

Storyline
Charles Keith is the Master of Ceremonies in this nightclub performance film. Before he introduces other acts, he confesses that he is an out-of-work actor whose idol is Bette Davis. He does a masterful impersonation of her role in The Letter in which he first sounds remarkably like the actress, then even begins to look like her. The next act is Joesfred Portee, who sings. Then, Keith introduces "Little Audrey" Armstrong, who demonstrates her remarkable muscle control and persistence in a gyrating dance. For a finale, Ms. Portee comes back and sings.

Citation: G. William Jones Film and Video Collection, Southern Methodist University  

Verdict: Not Guilty (1933)
















Written and Directed by:
Storyline
Part religious allegory and part church pageant, it presents the heavenly trial of a woman who has died giving childbirth out of wedlock. The jailer wears a mask death’s head mask and a nun’s habit with a skull and crossbones on the front and God sits on an altar, flanked by angels, while the devil attempts to convict the woman for her sins. 

Faceless Man (1980's)























Starring:


Storyline
When Piet, an innocent man looking for work, gets roped up in an assassination on a local politician, he ends up working with the police to bring the culprit who hired him to justice. But it is soon revealed that Detective Andrew, whom Piet is helping work the case, is in fact the criminal known as the “Faceless Man”, and it soon becomes a cat and mouse game to bring this corrupt police man to justice.