BlackmanVision Film Production

We said goodbye to Earth Kitt this Thursday. She was 81 and wonderful.

Let’s gloss over the performances in apartheid South Africa during the cultural boycott. She was blacklisted for speaking out against the Vietnam war. And created the iconic Catwoman. Orson Welles describe her as “the most exciting woman in the world.”

She will be missed. Here s a video of her singing I Want to Be Evil.

M.K. Asante, Jr.  has made a new film charting the origins of Kwanzaa, co-written by Maya Angelou. The film uses the seven principles of Kwanzaa: unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity and faith as a framework.

Interviewees include Chuck D and Amiri Baraka.

MK Asante was one of the interviewees in 500 years later. A film about the experience of the African Disaspora affected by slavery.

The Black Candle Screens at the ICA on the 4th january.

Melvin van Peebles who is an artist, writer and composer has been honoured by the African-American Film Critics Association with its Special Achievement Award. He made Sweet Sweetback’s Baadassss Song 1971 an example of guerilla filmmaking long before the term was invented. He recounts having to pretend he was making a pornographic film to get around the Unions. He also used the music from Earth Wind and Fire, then an unknown group. And in clasic lo-budget style used his whole family in the cast and crew. He owns all the rights to this clasic film. All indie filmmakers can still learn alot from this man. There is an interview with him below.

One Village Entertainment is a division of About Image Entertainment and bills itself as “The newly formed division will distribute feature films, comedy specials, staged plays, documentaries and music content targeting the African-American consumer. One Village Entertainment strives to become a dominant force in the urban genre by providing the marketplace a vast collection of higher quality programming”

The most recent film is This is Not a Test is a political film about the USA’s response to terrorism.

Is this Blaxploitation for the 21st Century? Or a genuine attempt to get Black stories now renamed urban into the cinemas?

I learned about Haile Gerima through articles that had been written about him and was delighted to find this inspirational interview with him on YouTube. In this amazing interview he talks about the making of Sankofa and Bush Mama. We also see the arts centre called Sankofa that he set up to promote Black filmmaking. His analysis of Hollywood the business in terms of Black culture is spot on.

Taking the colonial adventures of Lord Edgerton as its starting point, the pleasure pavilion film tent hosts a weekend of films exploring the act of travel and the traveller’s encounters with the exotic which find echoes in the rare plants, architecture and garden design which were brought to Tatton by Lord Edgerton and his family. From the early images of spectacular landscapes first glimpsed in the simulated train carriages of Hales Tours to Peter Kulbelka’s satirical portrait of the safari in Unsere Africanse and Jean Rouch’s Les Maitres Fou.

Still of Legacy

Legacy screens in NewFest on the 12th June in All the Reel Girls, Program Running Time is 92 min. The screening is on Thursday, June 12th 3:45pm AMC Loews 34th St Theater 10.

Fem screens in the Femmetastic Programme in Inside Out Toronto’s Lesbian and Gay Film Festival.

The venue is Royal Ontario Museum on the 25th May at 5pm

You can check out Broken Chain online and all the films in City Speaks programme on the BBC Film Network.

Bernie Grant Arts Centre is having a weekend exhibition. Legacy will be screening in the gallery space over the weekend.

On the 9th March at 3.30 there will be a panel discussion chaired by Gaylene Gould and will have myself and other artists including Peggy Shaw, Anna Furse, Akousa Bambara, Cassie Waller, Shirley Williams, and Rosanna Raymond.