African American Female Filmmakers

Vintage Viewing: Zora Neale Hurston, Open Observer

Part of Vintage Viewing, exploring the work of female filmmaking pioneers.

“Mama exhorted her children at every opportunity to ‘jump at the sun.’ We might not land on the sun, but at least we would get off the ground. ” – Zora Neale Hurston

The seven principles of Kwanzaa (Nguzo Saba), designed to foster community empowerment in the face of racial stigma, include Kujichagulia, the right to “define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves and speak for ourselves.” Though we often debate choice of imagery on Bitch Flicks, it is impossible to create an image that represents another group’s equality, because their right to define their own image is fundamental to that equality. Caribbean-American comedian Bert Williams became the first Black artist to write, produce, direct and star in a film, with 1916’s A Natural Born Gambler, having already broken boundaries as writer-star of In Dahomey (1902), the first Black musical on Broadway. Williams’ performances exploited the blackface conventions of his age to be acceptable to a wider audience, while illuminating them with humanity and subversive subtext, as he continually fought for greater creative control. At the climax of A Natural Born Gambler, his character plays an imaginary poker game in prison. By losing, even in his own fantasy, Williams makes virtuoso mime into poignant commentary on internalized stigma, also the theme of his hit song, “Nobody,” from the 1906 musical Abyssinia. The same year, Williams’ Fish cast himself, then in his 40s, as a young boy who escapes his chores to catch fish and is punished for his entrepreneurship. In a society where even Black children were often viewed as prematurely adult, Williams’ demand that audiences recognize the child in the man was challenging, and audiences reacted unfavorably. Neither of Williams’ surviving films feature significant roles for women.

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Bert Williams masked biting commentary under comic delivery

In 1920, Oscar Micheaux wrote and directed Within Our Gates, the oldest surviving feature film by a Black director. The film argues for education and against the unquestioned domination of the church, while breaking many taboos, including depicting a lynching and the attempted rape of a Black woman by a white man. However, its heroines remain stilted and rigidly defined by Madonna/Whore framing. Micheaux’s 1925 film, Body and Soul, features a powerful performance by Mercedes Gilbert as a rape victim, opposite a menacing debut by Paul Robeson. Yet, the heroine must demonstrate her virtue by dying of shame, harnessing the martyrdom of the female body to score Micheaux’ points about oppressive religious hypocrisy. 1910’s White Fawn’s Devotion by James Young Deer (the Nanticoke director of 34 Westerns, whose role in shaping the genre is rarely acknowledged), uses the martyred suicide of White Fawn to prove to her Euro-American husband that she is attached to homeland and kin, once more scoring its racial points through female martyrdom (even if the heroine recovers for a happy end).

Once tipped for an Oscar, Louise Beavers remained typecast as 'Maid' — Once tipped for an Oscar, Louise Beavers remained typecast as “Maid”

“As long as the plays are being written and produced by whites for whites, there will be the same chance for criticism. The only remedy is for such plays as would meet popular favor to be produced by us.” – Louise Beavers

Mabel Normand‘s star vehicle, Mickey, featured sympathetic scenes of bonding between Mickey and her foster mother, played by Cheyenne comedienne Minnie Devereaux, while Mae West’s films showed extensive, sympathetic banter with maids played by Louise Beavers (whose performance in Imitation of Life was acclaimed as Oscar-worthy, without promoting Beavers from supporting roles) and Soo Yong (cast as aunt to a yellowface protagonist in The Good Earth). Though these displays of interracial female solidarity by Normand and West would be considered progressive for their time, they limit women of color to supporting roles, reinforcing their heroines’ white supremacy. The fact that white female filmmakers tended to reinforce white supremacy with their representations, while male directors of other races utilized disempowering sexist tropes, surely illustrates why they cannot collectively represent women of color.

As Deborah Riley Draper points out in her Bitch Flicks post, “#EarlyCinemaSoBlack,” many Black women were striving to bring their perspectives to the screen at this time. Tressie Souders became probably the first Black woman to write and direct a film with A Woman’s Error in 1922, but her film is now lost. However, considering how Chinese-American writer-director Marion Wong’s 1916 feature, The Curse of the Quon Gwon: When the Far East Mingles With The West, turned up unexpectedly in a basement in 2005, Souders’ film might yet be similarly rediscovered. Wong showcased traditional Chinese ceremonies to satisfy Western curiosity about the exotic Orient, but she also explored Chinese-American cultural tensions with the nuance of an insider. The Curse of the Quon Gwon uses superimpositions and dissolves in a short fantasy sequence to represent the heroine’s own imagination, predating similar effects by Germaine Dulac. It’s worth remembering that Dulac made a series of conventional films before developing the impressionist and surrealist styles that she is celebrated for, while The Curse of Quon Gwon was Marion Wong’s only film (denied financing, distribution or promotion, despite her striving to secure them). With the same support as Dulac, how far could Wong have developed, described by the Oakland Tribune as “energy personified”?

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Where they did not face the stigma of a racial minority, women of color found more filmmaking success. In India, Fatma Begum directed the first of eight fantasy epics in 1926. The following decade, Sakane Tazuko became the first female director in Japan, while Elena Sánchez Valenzuela directed a feature documentary in her native Mexico, acclaimed by journalists for “hundreds of the most beautiful, evocative scenes” but now lost. Esther Eng began writing and directing in Hong Kong in 1937 (documentary clip). Still, the ethnographic films of Zora Neale Hurston remain a rarity: vintage footage directed by a woman of color, available online. Better known as the playwright of 1925’s prize-winning Color Struck, as a leading light of the Harlem Renaissance, and as the author of novels including Their Eyes Were Watching God (see Bitch Flicks‘ review of Darnell Martin’s adaptation), Hurston also studied anthropology under Dr. Franz Boaz, who dedicated his life to challenging assumptions of Western cultural superiority. Believed to be part of Hurston’s wider research into African-American folklore, these ethnographic films were made in the Southern United States between 1928 and 1929. The footage is scored in the embedded video with Hurston’s own performance of folk songs that she collected. At first glance, her films seem like simple anthropological records. However, they are equally revealing when read as explorations of our ways of seeing, framing and interpreting others.

Logging (1928) – Children’s Games (1928) – Baptism (1929)

“She pulled in her horizon like a great fish-net. Pulled it from around the waist of the world and draped it over her shoulder. So much of life in its meshes!” – Zora Neale Hurston

The Palestinian-American founder of postcolonialism, Edward Said’s Orientalism explored how the psychological needs of the observer shape their observations, as much as the nature of the thing observed. Criticizing the constant framing of “things Oriental in class, court, prison or manual for scrutiny, study, judgment, discipline or governing,” Said noted that imperial observers tended to interpret the Orient through “synchronic essentialism,” as something fixed and unchanging. Essentialist interpretations deny responsibility: if something is unchanging, it is impossible for oppression to impact it. If women are essentially and eternally nags, you aren’t responsible for your wife’s annoyance. If colonized people are hotheaded savages, they need no reason for rebellion. If dispossessed peoples are permanently lazy, it isn’t a symptom of their demoralizing dispossession. Oppressors become invisible to themselves through their interpretative framework.

Fictions of objective and invisible observers (oppressors?) are the traditional framing of anthropology. A “native” may be scowling because the photographer is intrusive, but their image will be frozen as an “objective” record of the “hostile native”, with viewers instinctively imagining themselves in the photographer’s place. Robert Flaherty’s Nanook of the North charmed audiences with its warm intimacy, popularizing the art of the documentary feature. But by claiming objectivity and obscuring his sexual relationship with his subjects, however, Flaherty distorted their shared banter and flirtation into essentialized features of the “happy-go-lucky Eskimo” and his “smiling one” wife, fueling a popular image of Inuit naivete and availability.

In her ethnographic films, Hurston, by contrast, strikingly resists fictions of objectivity and pointedly draws attention to herself as observer. A woman and a dancing child smile directly into her lens in extreme close-up, with shy pride or beaming pleasure at her clearly encouraging attention. Instead of merely observing their games, we join the circle of clapping children and they interact with the camera as it pans over their faces. Hurston’s camera is dynamic, tracking up a logging railway and lingering on tapping feet. We instinctively warm to her subjects, as we share Hurston’s sense of belonging through her camera’s gaze. She contrasts the work of an elderly lumberjack with the machinery of professional logging, showing a world of changing realities, and lingers on sawmill workers’ leisure rather than fetishizing their labor, casually noticing a woman among them. Is their mechanized modernity an improvement on the old man’s axe?

Faith Ringgold: 'In Picasso's Studio' — Faith Ringgold: “Picasso’s Studio”

“She had an inside and an outside now and suddenly she knew how not to mix them.” – Zora Neale Hurston

Of most interest for questions of self-representation, Hurston briefly portrays woman’s life in the community. Opening with the woman framed against her home environment, a wooden cabin, in the pose of a typical anthropological subject, Hurston’s woman then holds our gaze purposefully and walks up close. Hurston instructs her to smile, turn and present her profiles; she is reframed as a model, or an actress on a casting call. Compare Faith Ringgold‘s “Picasso’s Studio”: her nude heroine models against a backdrop of African “primitivism” that has been reframed by Picasso as “modernism,” while Ringgold playfully reframes Picasso himself in the African-American, feminine “folk art” of quilting, challenging the gendered and racialized ways art is interpreted and (de)valued, just as Zora Neale Hurston challenges the devaluing subtext of the anthropological frame through glamor modeling. As Hurston cuts to her woman sitting with another woman on the porch, laughing in each other’s company, this is surely the silent film equivalent of a Bechdel pass. Bouncing to a wide angle on the cabin environment, the next shot reframes the woman again, draping her over her porch railing in the “Venus reclining” pose. Hurston’s use of this classical pose recalls the 19th century African-American/Ojibwa sculptor Edmonia Lewis‘ use of Classical Grecian styles to visually code her African and Indigenous subjects as noble. From this static pose, Hurston cuts to the woman’s feet tapping as she rocks, adding musical sensibility. Hurston has thus reframed her subject five times: 1) as a product of her environment, 2) as a glamorous beauty, 3) within a community of female friendship, 4) as an iconic goddess and 5) as an appreciator of music. In total silence, in under a minute and with a mediocre camera, Hurston achieves a multi-faceted portrait. Imagine what she could have done with a budget and a distributor.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtPrN-zYZc4″]

The world’s first animated feature film, 1926’s The Adventures of Prince Achmed, was a celebration of Middle-Eastern folklore, animated by Lotte Reiniger. Reiniger’s concept, for creating feature-length animations based on classic folklore, would become box office gold for Walt Disney, winning him a special Oscar for innovation, while he also patented a design for a multi-plane camera almost identical to Reiniger’s. Despite his debt to Lotte Reiniger, Disney would exclude women from creative work in his company. Next month’s Vintage Viewing: Lotte Reiniger, Animating Innovator. Stay tuned!

Brigit McCone writes and directs short films and radio dramas. Her hobbies include doodling and learning new things.

The Academy’s White Noise: Silencing the Lions

I said that I had hoped this year would be different. However, when the Academy announced its nominations, I was not surprised.

Black men and women, organized by character type, who have won Academy Awards. This is an updated infographic after Nyong'o's win last year. We won't get to add "Historical Civil Rights Icon" as a category in 2015. Click to enlarge. — Black men and women, organized by character type, who have won Academy Awards. This is an updated infographic after Nyong’o’s win last year. We won’t get to add “Historical Civil Rights Icon” as a category in 2015. *Click to enlarge*.

Written by Leigh Kolb as part of our theme week on the Academy Awards.

Two years ago, after Django Unchained was largely snubbed at the Oscars (compared to the Golden Globes), I looked at the history of the Black actors/characters who were awarded by the Academy over the years. Last year, I revisited that history as 12 Years a Slave dominated the awards circuit.

It’s fairly clear what roles Hollywood is most comfortable with: for Black characters, passivity, tired stereotypes, and villainy get the highest awards. Complex, powerful Black characters–especially those who appear threatening to white supremacy in some way–typically get passed over.

I hoped this year would be different. This year, institutionalized, implicit American racism seeped out of the pores of American cities and psyches post-Ferguson. This year, Ava DuVernay directed Selma, 5o years after the Selma to Montgomery march that led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act. The film is brilliant in its own right–DuVernay’s direction and David Oyelowo’s portrayal of Martin Luther King Jr. are incredible. Certainly the power of the film within the historical context would make the Academy sit upright and give credit where credit is due.

Instead, we got more of the same. Selma was recognized widely in Golden Globe nominations–best picture, best director, best actor, best original song (John Legend and Common’s “Glory,” which took home the award). And then, as always, the Academy turned up its white nose. While it’s up for best picture and and original song, DuVernay and Oyelowo were passed over.

At Rolling Stone, Peter Travers said,

“Why am I calling this year’s Oscars, on February 22nd, the ‘Caucasian Consensus,’ when Selma is one of the eight nominees for Best Picture? Because that landmark film about Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1965 civil-rights march has only one other nomination, for Best Song. Not one person of color appears among the 20 nominees for acting. Apparently, the Academy thought it gave last year when it awarded 12 Years a Slave the gold. The message from white voters? Don’t get uppity.”

Not one person of color.

I said that I had hoped this year would be different. However, when the Academy announced its nominations, I was not surprised.

I had to drive over an hour to watch Selma on the big screen, because none of the theaters in the small towns around me screened it (and they still haven’t).

This happened 20 minutes from my home.

The Voting Rights Act was gutted in 2013.

Writers had to defend DuVernay’s portrayal of an imperfect L.B.J.

In an interview, late author Chinua Achebe quoted the following proverb: “Until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.” This proverb perfectly, painfully illustrates Hollywood’s–and America’s–hegemonic forces at work.

The hunters write history. The hunters glorify themselves. The hunters’ history infiltrates itself into the very fabric of our cultural narrative, so we’re only comfortable with seeing the complexities of the hunters, and the simplicity of the lions.

Selma challenged that narrative. Oyelowo–who felt destined to play King–and DuVernay dared to glorified the lions.

And the hunters simply wouldn’t hear of it.

Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature, and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri.

Captain Uhura Snub: The Politics of Ava DuVernay’s Oscar

It is appropriate, when celebrating the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., to recall Dr. King’s words to Nichelle Nichols, as she considered quitting ‘Star Trek’ in frustration at the limitations of her role: “You can’t leave!… For the first time on television, we are being seen as we should be seen every day. As intelligent, quality, beautiful people … who can go into space.” Dr. King’s words show that he clearly understood the value of a token image, as a symbol, a precedent and a possibility model for future progress.

Written by Brigit McCone as part of our theme week on the Academy Awards.

After seeing Selma, I’ve finally stopped yelling “Ava DuVernay was robbed! Robbed, I tell you!” long enough to jot down some thoughts. Let’s be clear: Ava DuVernay was robbed because her work on Selma turns familiar history into a gripping story, humanizes Martin Luther King Jr. while honoring his legacy, and captures the sweep of history without sacrificing the resonance of individual lives. It was inspirational history, the kind the Oscars typically reward, executed with supreme skill. Though her representation of L.B.J. was criticized, DuVernay’s characterization accurately reflected his wider shift from obstructing to supporting civil rights, while taking artistic liberties with the timeline of that shift. If Ron Howard could win Best Director for the blatantly inaccurate A Beautiful Mind, DuVernay was obviously due a nomination for Selma. Minimum.

It is because DuVernay’s work was brilliant, beyond her race and gender, that we must ask why a Black woman was snubbed. Did 12 Years A Slave‘s triumph at the 2014 Oscars influence the snubbing of Selma‘s director and actors? Recall Kathryn Bigelow’s win for Best Director in 2010. The moment Barbra Streisand stepped out to present the award, it was clear Bigelow’s name would be called. Though Bigelow’s acceptance speech never referenced being the first woman to win, Streisand’s presence shrieked, “It was time we gave it to a woman,” even as the hypermasculine Hurt Locker hardly challenged the Academy’s preference for male stories. Or recall 2001, when Denzel Washington and Halle Berry made their historic wins at the same ceremony as Sidney Poitier’s lifetime achievement award, a synchronicity that shrieked “It was time we gave it to Black performers,” threatening to overshadow Washington and Berry’s individual excellence. The Academy is not exactly subtle in framing minority wins as token gestures. If Bigelow resisted the symbolism of her win, Berry embraced it, using her speech to honor Dorothy Dandridge, Lena Horne, Diahann Carroll, Jada Pinkett, Angela Bassett, Vivica Fox, and Oprah Winfrey. Tokenism is uncomfortable, but it’s still visibility. Tokens are symbols, precedents and possibility models (as Laverne Cox might put it). If we read Oscars partly as tokens, the question arises: was Ava DuVernay snubbed because, as a Black woman, the Oscars of Steve McQueen and Kathryn Bigelow collectively represented her category?

The African American feminist Ana Julia Cooper wrote “Women versus the Indian” in 1891, criticizing white suffragettes who viewed women as a separate category, in competition with racial minorities for their rights (see also Sojourner Truth’s “Ar’nt I a Woman?”). Those who mentally isolate categories of oppression seek to maximize mainstream approval in their choice of spokesperson: the straight man of color for racial justice; the white, cis woman for feminism; the white, straight-acting gay man for LGBT causes. Each individual choice of “representative” collectively upholds the overall superiority of the straight, white male perspective (add wealthy, educated, able-bodied etc.). Because this pattern channels subversive impulses into a collective reinforcement of dominant ideology, dominant culture rewards it. One symptom is the repeated use of white women and Black men to collectively represent Black women – “the Captain Uhura snub.”

Not pictured: Captains Sisko and Janeway

It is appropriate, when celebrating the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., to recall Dr. King’s words to Nichelle Nichols, as she considered quitting Star Trek in frustration at the limitations of her role: “You can’t leave!… For the first time on television, we are being seen as we should be seen every day. As intelligent, quality, beautiful people … who can go into space.” Dr. King’s words show that he clearly understood the value of a token image, as a symbol, a precedent and a possibility model for future progress.

Nichelle Nichols’ Lieutenant Nyota Uhura should be an icon to every woman who is underemployed and unappreciated at work. Her mouth said, “Klingons on line one, Captain,” but her eyes said, “I should be running this place.” Within the limitations of her role, representing both token Black lieutenant and token woman, and thereby freeing a seat for another white guy, Nichols took every opportunity to demonstrate Uhura’s intelligence, charisma, courage and sex appeal. When allowed to banter with Spock, in scenes that inspired their romantic relationship in JJ Abrams’ reboot, Uhura revealed herself to be Spock’s respected intellectual equal, with the skills to man the helm, navigation and science station if needed. In combat with Mirror!Sulu, she revealed potential as an action heroine, anticipating Pam Grier (whose groundbreaking stardom in blaxploitation inspired a trend of white action heroines, instead of mainstream opportunities for Pam Grier). Uhura was cool under pressure and commanding. Though the original Star Trek‘s “Turnabout Intruder” episode claimed that women were not emotionally capable of captaincy, Uhura disproved that claim on the animated (and female-authored) “The Lorelei Signal.”

In time, society progressed and its vision of the future evolved. Dr. King’s dream of television normalizing inspirational Black leadership came true for the Trekverse, when Captain Ben Sisko of Deep Space Nine took command, combining professional skill with hands-on fathering. The aspirations of feminists paid off when Kate Mulgrew’s swashbuckling Janeway helmed Voyager. But while evolution in Star Trek‘s racial and feminist politics produced a few token promotions of Uhura’s rank, it left her marginalized supporting role unchanged. Zoe Saldana’s Uhura occupies roughly the same position in Star Trek reboots as Nichelle Nichols did on the original show. Black women can be judges, police chiefs, or politicians on our screens, at statistically disproportionate rates, but only in tokenist supporting roles that serve to discredit the reality of discrimination. When the time comes for diversity among aspirational heroes, those heroes become white women and Black men. That, in a nutshell, is the Captain Uhura snub, the intersectional finger trap of representation politics. Nichols herself aged regally and with no diminishing of spirit in the later Star Trek films, but Sisko and Janeway substitute for the unique icon that Nichols’ Captain Uhura could have been, not only as a Black woman but as a woman who paid her dues in limited and sexualized roles before showing what she was capable of. Voyager drew a sharp line between the asexual (or rather, not overtly sexualized) competence of Janeway and the spandex-clad sex-bot Seven of Nine. Captain Uhura would have straddled that line, challenging the assumed incompatibility of being a sexual object with being an aspirational hero.

Not pictured: Captain Marvel and Black Panther

Ororo Munroe, a.k.a. Storm, is an icon. As a member of the X-Men, she fights for the rights of the mutant minority, against those who fear what they cannot understand. As an ally (and sometime wife) of Black Panther, she defends the sovereignty of Wakanda against colonial forces. Oh, and she also flies, bends the elements to her will and shoots lightning. 20th Century Fox owns the rights to X-Men, so Marvel Studios cannot be directly blamed for scheduling Captain Marvel and Black Panther to headline instead of Ororo (though they can easily be blamed for taking a decade to produce diverse superhero films). But upcoming plans to film starring vehicles for Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel have put female superheroes on the agenda. Why hasn’t this prompted 20th Century Fox to greenlight a solo outing for Wind-rider Storm, despite the rich source material of Greg Pak’s popular solo comics and the fact that the woman shoots lightning? Storm’s role in Bryan Singer’s X-Men franchise screamed “Lieutenant Uhura,” providing visible diversity while being constantly marginalized by the plot. Pak has the last word: “Storm’s the embodiment of fierce, raw power – and deep abiding empathy. She’s the most powerful woman in the Marvel Universe — incredibly exciting and elemental — even dangerous.” Movie, please.

Not pictured: Richard Pryor and Joan Rivers

In an earlier post, I discussed evidence for regarding Loretta Mary Aiken, better known as Moms Mabley, as the pioneer of modern stand-up comedy. Evolving from vaudeville monologues, Jackie Mabley was nicknamed “Moms” because of her nurturing attitude to other performers. Her tackling of taboo topics such as race, gender, sexual double standards, poverty, and substance abuse, defined the truth-telling role we associate with the art of stand-up today. Moms herself said that everyone stole from her apart from Redd Foxx, and she was older than Redd, too.

In particular, Richard Pryor and Joan Rivers, many decades younger than Mabley, both recognized her as a major influence. In pop culture, Pryor is often hailed as the “Godfather of Comedy.” The tendency of Black comedians to recognize Pryor as the most significant pioneer of Black comedy comes at the expense of Pryor’s own acknowledged debt to Mabley, as does the tendency of feminists to cite Joan Rivers as the groundbreaking pioneer of female stand-up. Moms is often totally omitted from lists of top stand-ups, despite her claim to being the original. These choices of “representative” diminish the unique contribution of Moms Mabley, and the visibility of Black women as innovators of world culture.

Not pictured: Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton

As we prepare for Barack Obama to step down from the U.S. presidency, all indicators point to the next Democratic nominee being a white woman, with Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren as the frontrunners. When we celebrate womankind finally getting their shot at global leadership (Angela Merkel aside), let us take a moment to remember the candidacy of Shirley Chisholm (not to mention that Ana Julia Cooper should clearly have been running the country in the 1890s).

A founding member of the 1971 National Women’s Political Caucus, as well as the first Black congresswoman, Chisholm actively mentored an all-female staff, took political stands in favor of reproductive rights and against the Vietnam war, and fought against social exclusion on the basis of class, race and gender. Her political philosophy may be summarized by her 1972 presidential campaign slogan: “Unbought and Unbossed.” She was the first woman to win delegates for a major party nomination and the first Black candidate to run on a major party ticket. Chisholm’s voting record shows exceptional integrity and political courage, matched by the intelligence and determination to rise from a background of poverty and intersectional discriminations. Chisholm was an exemplary candidate. The fact that her career trajectory – breaking boundaries for both women and Black candidates before being snubbed for leadership – mirrors a fictional Star Trek character, hints at the power of the collective imagination to shape reality.

Change will come. After establishing her reputation with Grey’s Anatomy, which introduced a dynamic, multiracial cast behind the commercial appeal of white protagonists, Meredith Grey and Dr. McDreamy, Shonda Rhimes has created compelling, multi-faceted Black heroines (or antiheroines) who dominate Scandal and How To Get Away With Murder. Whoopi Goldberg has directed a documentary on Moms Mabley, while Shola Lynch directed one about Shirley Chisholm’s presidential bid. Last year, directors Amma Asante and Gina Prince-Bythewood offered Gugu Mbatha-Raw starring roles as fully realized protagonists. But these are all examples of Black women directors, fighting alone for better screen representations. Yes, Ava DuVernay has demonstrated talent and ambition with Selma that cannot be destroyed by a mere Oscar snub. Yes, she will probably continue to make great films until her achievements are officially recognized (am I the only one rooting for a biopic of Queen Nzinga starring Lupita Nyong’o?). But it’s high time that the “progressive” mainstream, from the Academy to Star Trek to white feminist commentators, started opening doors without waiting for them to be beaten down.

"Open a hailing frequency, Mr. Kirk" — “Open a hailing frequency, Mr. Kirk”

Brigit McCone reckons Ranavalona of Madagascar should be the next epic Shonda Rhimes antiheroine. She writes and directs short films and radio dramas. Her hobbies include doodling and shouting at the television on Oscar night.

‘Selma’ Is Now

In so many ways, this film reflects the current moment, while also highlighting how things have and have not changed since the King family and their allies risked their lives to secure rights for all. Scenes in the film will jolt you into the present: watching Jimmie Lee Jackson’s mother grieve in 1965 for the son she will never see again made me immediately think of the family of Tamir Rice, the young black boy who was murdered by police officers this year for toting a toy gun in Ohio. ‘Selma’ is now.

This guest post by Nijla Mu’min previously appeared at Bitch Media and is cross-posted with permission.

Historical dramas often stick to a tried-and-true formula: Important figures face struggles, then they triumph, becoming the great people we know today. We can usually count on a scene from their conflicted childhood, scenes showing their romantic troubles, any issues with drugs or alcohol, and how they persevered through it all to deliver whatever divine message or artistic gift they possessed.

Ava DuVernay’s new Martin Luther King Jr. biopic, Selma, avoids this formula—much to its benefit. It is one of the most effective, well-crafted historical biopics that I’ve ever seen because it goes off the traditional narrative about the Civil Rights Movement, giving us a moment in history that feels immediately familiar to the moment we are currently living in.

Selma captures the tireless efforts of Martin Luther King Jr. and a group of black activists attempting to secure equal voting rights for black people. These efforts led to the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. The film takes its name from the series of marches that King and his followers embarked on at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. One of those marches was infamously known as “Bloody Sunday,” after police and deputized locals descended on the protesters with nightsticks and tear gas. DuVernay and Director of Photography Bradford Young capture that march in all its terror in a scene where young and elderly marchers are clubbed and chased by angry police on horses. Selma certainly doesn’t cast the history of the Civil Rights Movement in feel-good soft focus.

In a recent interview I conducted with DuVernay, she discussed the way she approached the humanity of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., including his suspected infidelity. She was most interested in how this information affected his wife, Coretta Scott King, and how Martin Luther King would respond in the moment when questioned by Coretta. This emphasis on the intimacy in their relationship, rather than the scandal that the FBI sought to publicize, is something that informs the core of the film.

DuVernay is not interested in showing us montages of the unfaithful hero, his mistress, and the scorned wife, as was done in Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom. She is interested in the complex spaces of love and pain between two people. Coretta Scott King, played with an uncanny resemblance by Carmen Ejogo, takes on a central role in this film, not only as a wife and mother, but as a key player in the movement as she faces daily death threats made against her and her family. The attention and specificity paid to her character and her relationship to King is another gift that DuVernay brings to this film.

Further, there are so many ways this film could’ve become an extension of the Hallmark image that we see of Martin Luther King Jr., one that replays the same “I Have a Dream Speech” and tells us that nonviolence is the only way. While those elements are important, they are often overemphasized at the expense of the other work he did.

That is where Selma fills in the blanks. In this film, we get to know a methodical, intelligent, human Martin Luther King Jr; a man who just wanted to sit down at the end of the day and smoke a cigarette, or call Mahalia Jackson in the middle of the night to hear her sing a soothing gospel song. In the film, he invokes nonviolence but also cleverly provokes outward hatred in his opponents, helping people around the world witness this physical racism in the media. His tactics were risky, his negotiations with the likes of LBJ were grueling, and he was often put in positions of extreme discomfort, along with the many people he worked with.

This is not a film about a man and his followers, but about how a man’s work is informed by the respect he has for the people he works with—and even those he doesn’t. It reflects the movement by emphasizing distinct traits in each of the civil rights leaders it documents, from the youthful resistance of Jimmie Lee Jackson (played powerfully by Keith Stanfield), to the gentle persistence of Malcolm X (Nigel Thatch), who appeals to Coretta Scott King in a beautifully rendered scene. That scene and others completely reverse the rhetoric we’ve been fed about who these people were. The warring ideals between Malcolm and Martin aren’t the focus of this narrative, but rather how Malcolm X may have actually intentionally pushed many black people to follow Martin Luther King Jr., helping to strengthen the movement after all. Again, DuVernay utilized Coretta Scott King in a way that shows her role in the movement beyond being a supportive wife. She serves as a sort of peacemaker here.

Selma opened Christmas Day in Los Angeles, New York City, Washington, DC, and Atlanta. It opens nationwide Jan. 9.

Nijla Mu’min is a writer and filmmaker. She writes and direct movies about black mermaids, black lesbians, black girls in-between worlds, and boys too.

‘Beyond the Lights’ Premiere: Interviews with Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Gina Prince-Bythewood

Gina Price-Bythewood: “It’s a love story first, but for me as a filmmaker, I never just want to make a movie that entertains. It should entertain first, but I think it should say something and this was an issue that was important to me, the way woman are objectified. The way that women don’t have a voice. As an artist I was able to put that into the film as well as someone who has something to say and sometimes it’s a struggle to get the chance, to just inspire women, also men, to have their own voice.”

New+York+Premiere+Relativity+Media+Beyond+JSRkDgZtCe6l — Gugu Mbatha-Raw, left, and Gina Prince-Bythewood

This is a guest post by Paula Schwartz.

Read ahead for interviews with Beyond the Lights star, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, and director, Gina Prince-Bythewood.

Gugu Mbatha-Raw, so good earlier this year in Amma Asante’s Belle as a biracial woman raised in aristocracy in slave-era England, is just as impressive in Gina Prince-Bythewood’s Beyond the Lights as Noni, a pop singer who yearns for her identity and authenticity even as she’s pushed to perform sexy numbers in skimpy costumes. Mbatha-Raw’s fiery performance, which showcases her talent as a singer and dancer, just earned her a Gotham nomination for best actress to include her in the company of Julianne Moore and Scarlett Johansson.

As for the talented director, Prince-Bythewood, it’s been way too long between movies; her last feature film was The Secret Life of Bees in 2008, and before that, the critically acclaimed Love & Basketball, back in 2000.

I chatted with Mbatha-Raw and Prince-Bythewood on the red carpet at the New York premiere of Beyond the Lights last week.

Co-stars Nate Parker, who plays the security guard who becomes her love interest after he saves her from a suicide attempt, and rapper Colson “Machine Gun Kelly” Baker, who told me he writes lyrics that respect women, joined Mbatha-Raw on the red carpet, along with writer-director Gina Prince-Bythewood and her producer husband, Reggie Rock Bythewood. (Minnie Driver, who gives a powerhouse performance as Noni’s manipulative “momager,” and in one of the best scenes in the movie has a blow-out argument with Noni over the direction of her career, was sadly not at the premiere.)

First I got to speak to Gugu Mbatha-Raw, who went from the film’s pop diva vixen in the film to an elegant 1940s-style Hollywood glamour queen on the red carpet.
Bitch Flicks: How did the musical scenes come together?

Mbatha-Raw: It’s been such a gift of a role. I grew up singing and dancing as a child, but more sort of musical theater style and classical dancing, so for me to be able to embrace this hip-hop style, you know I had a lot of help. Gina surrounded me with some wonderful people in the industry, not just herself, who’s had a background researching a lot of the hip-hop world, but also Laurieann Gibson, the choreographer (Lady Gaga, Nicki Minaj, Katy Perry), The Dream (Kanye West, Beyonce, Jay-Z), who wrote all the original music (Rihanna, Kanye West, Beyoncé) and also Machine Gun Kelly, who’s here, who really is a rapper in the industry and brings so much charisma and authenticity cause he really is from that world, so really I sort of had a lot of things to draw upon and felt very well-supported by the research cause we knew about the movie, or I knew about the movie, for almost two years before we got to shoot it.

BF: Were you uncomfortable performing the sexually suggestive numbers?

Mbatha-Raw: I felt very supported by the choreography. We rehearsed it; Laurieann Gibson as I mentioned, created that whole routine and that was something we rehearsed in the studio in front of a mirror for many hours, you know, and adding the elements of the hair, the makeup, the wigs, the amazing hair designs by Kim Kimble (Beyoncé), and the costumes of course, so we really were building this character on so many levels and then it was just really down to kind of doing it and singing the song and projecting that energy into the lens, which was a new experience for me, because usually as an actress you’re pretending the camera isn’t there but obviously for a music video in that style you have to look directly into the camera. And that was scary initially, but I had to get over it.

BF: Talk about your upcoming projects, including Jupiter Ascending, the Wachowski siblings sci-fi film. (It co-stars Eddie Redmayne, Mila Kunis and Channing Tatum.)

Mbatha-Raw: I just have a small role in that, but it’s a really exciting movie. I’m looking forward to seeing it because I haven’t seen it yet. It’s sort of an epic space adventure and I play a character’s who’s half human, half deer.

I also shot a movie in the summer called The Whole Truth with another female director called Courtney Hunt. I don’t know when that’s coming out yet (Renee Zellweger, Keanu Reeves), and I’ve just started work on another project that’s called Compassion with Will Smith about brain injuries in the NFL.
BF: (To director Gina Prince-Bythewood about her search for an actress to play Noni.)

Prince-Bythewood: I thought I wanted a real musical artist in the lead when I first wrote it (2007) and then realized for this character I needed an actor because this character goes into some pretty deep depths. And I found Gugu two years ago and it was an amazing thing to find a woman who had incredible chops, could sing, and was brave enough to go there. And she really is brave.

BF: How did Gugu prepare for the musical numbers?

Prince-Bythewood: She put in so much work. She has a background in musical theater, which I didn’t know originally. But she worked with Debra Byrd, a vocal coach, one of the most renowned, and then the Dream; he did all the original music, and for her it was hours in the studio singing to his demos the way that Noni would, where they tell you exactly how to sing a word, how to breathe, how to sing a note. There’s no control and that’s what I wanted for Gugu the actress to have to experience, because that’s what Noni would experience.

BF: Your movie besides being entertainment has a message. How important was that to you as a filmmaker?

Prince-Bythewood: It’s a love story first, but for me as a filmmaker, I never just want to make a movie that entertains. It should entertain first, but I think it should say something and this was an issue that was important to me, the way woman are objectified. The way that women don’t have a voice. As an artist I was able to put that into the film as well as someone who has something to say and sometimes it’s a struggle to get the chance, to just inspire women, also men, to have their own voice.

BF: You talk about how women are sexually objectified in pop culture, but how do you avoid that trap in your portrayal of Noni doing those sexy moves?

Prince-Bythewood: It starts with the message of the film and Gugu and I talked a lot about why we were doing this film and it was really to talk to young girls who are only emulating what they see right now. Can we give them something else to aspire to? So going in we knew for the character of Noni, the less she wears the less you see of her, that was the mantra, so we had to make a big jump from her as little girl and that sweetness and innocence about her, to the jump to what she is 15 years later. It has to be dramatic so that you wonder what damage happened in between. Trust me, I’m a female filmmaker, it’s a little tough sometimes to shoot things like that, but we had to compete with what the videos are out today and honestly, we could have gone further. If you see what’s out now, so we had to be authentic so that we could take the character on a journey and bring her back to an authentic place and the place that she wants to be.

BF: What’s your next movie?

Prince-Bythewood: It will take me about a year to write. It focuses more on female friendship and the way it changes through the years.

Paula Schwartz is a veteran journalist who worked at the New York Times for three decades. For five years she was the Baguette for the New York Times movie awards blog Carpetbaggers. Before that she worked on the New York Times night life column, Boldface, where she covered the celebrity beat. She endured a poke in the ribs by Elijah Wood’s publicist, was ejected from a party by Michael Douglas’s flak after he didn’t appreciate what she wrote, and endured numerous other indignities to get a story. More happily she interviewed major actors and directors–all of whom were good company and extremely kind–including Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Morgan Freeman, Clint Eastwood, Christopher Plummer, Dustin Hoffman and the hammy pooch “Uggie” from The Artist. Her idea of heaven is watching at least three movies in a row with an appreciative audience that’s not texting. Her work has appeared in Moviemaker, more.com, showbiz411 and reelifewithjane.com.

Seed & Spark: High-Pitched Voice and a Soft Presence

When I was asked, “Who are you as a female filmmaker?” I immediately made a mental note. I’m a black, female filmmaker. I was reminded of the following quote from Gloria Anzaldúa: “A woman-of-color who writes poetry or paints or dances or makes movies knows that there is no escape from race or gender when she is writing or painting. She can’t take off her color or sex and leave them at the door of her study or studio. Nor can she leave behind her history. Art is about identity, among other things, and her creativity is political.”

This is a guest post by Ashley Ellis.

When I was asked, “Who are you as a female filmmaker?” I immediately made a mental note. I’m a black, female filmmaker. I was reminded of the following quote from Gloria Anzaldúa: “A woman-of-color who writes poetry or paints or dances or makes movies knows that there is no escape from race or gender when she is writing or painting. She can’t take off her color or sex and leave them at the door of her study or studio. Nor can she leave behind her history. Art is about identity, among other things, and her creativity is political.”

This resonates with me, especially when “political” is used in the broadest sense of the word. Respected artists aren’t afraid to present their point of view. A strong point of view comes directly from an innate sense of self. And when that self is part of a small minority in its space, suddenly what that self has to say can literally or figuratively, in the real world or in art, speak for many voiceless people. In other words, it becomes political. It’s no wonder that I was invited to write this post because of the Seed & Spark campaign for a film I directed, Fixed, which is about a black, closeted homosexual who commits suicide (spoiler alert!).

James Ward III in Fixed — James Ward III in *Fixed*

I don’t want every film I make to focus on a hot topic social issue, but every step forward in my very young career has been made by embracing being black and being a woman, and attempting to be in the film industry, which could be viewed as a negative, a disadvantage, a challenge, or anything otherwise BAD. I have examples:

Having a High-Pitched Voice and “Soft” Presence

Sometimes, speech determines how seriously people take you. I’ve become more aware of my voice, but I remember interviewing Georges Michel, Haiti’s Jack of All Expertise, for a documentary I was making after the quake. We sat down, and completely unaware of my voice, I asked him to introduce himself. He did, and then said that he’d be willing to answer any questions that I had. He had no doubt that I was coming from genuine place. The same applied when I interviewed two HIV positive women in Botswana who had lost young children to complications from the AIDS virus. They recounted the last moments of their baby’s lives. As we cried together, I knew that I was in a unique position to capture their stories. I’d made them comfortable enough to open up.

Literally Standing Out

Being one of the few people who looks like me on set or in the screening or at the event isn’t any different from being one of the only in my childhood community, classes, or teams. I’ve had plenty of time to get comfortable with it. We need more representations of women of color in Hollywood – of course – but I could dwell in a pool of sorrow or capitalize on a point of connection and conversation with people who may otherwise not have noticed me. I often have the least forgettable face.

Being What Could Be Called a Chronic 2^nd Guesser

I stopped myself on set once, because I kept asking the Director of Photography what he thought whenever I could. It felt like a bad thing. The director should know what (s)he wants! But then I thought, “Actually, I do!” And as long as my opinion and thoughts are expressed there’s no good reason why I shouldn’t ask the rest of my team for their knowledgeable input. Filmmaking is collaborative, and being a leader is about being diplomatic. So, I’m OK with the too-often-attributed-as-feminine-and-bad trait.

Some people may not have understood this avant garde piece, If I Had a Son, but I knew exactly what I wanted. This shot in particular. — Some people may not have understood this avant garde piece, *If I Had a Son*, but I knew exactly what I wanted. This shot in particular.

Being a Part of a Teeny Tiny Community

There’s certainly strength in numbers, but there’s also strength in small groups that truly come together. Part of the magic that happens on film sets is that people develop inextricable bonds, but couple that environment with the well -known truth that black filmmakers and actors are still struggling for space in Hollywood, and it’s easy to make friends ready to go on the warpath with you. This was apparent when we made Fixed, which was written, directed, and produced by ladies and had a long list of talented black actors, many of whom didn’t need to sign on to a low budget short film but saw the vision and importance of it.

I could go on… Like the time when my friend James told me that I was the silliest director he’d ever worked with while on the set of MoRemi’s music video for “Femi.” It was her first time making a video. There was no reason that we shouldn’t have been having fun. It wasn’t until James added that I was a welcome reprieve from the stern faced male directors he knew that I understood it was a compliment. Yet best of all, I’ve been blessed with amazing mentors like Adrienne Miller, Priscilla Cohen, Anne-Marie Mackay, Stewart Stern… Coleman Hough, all of whom have taken the time to help me develop my mind and voice, because they all believe that diversity in cinema means better cinema. So, who I am as a filmmaker is one who looks on the bright side. I’ve never truly felt limited. Two of my first cinematic influences, my mother and my grandmother, celebrated Disney films and romcoms, yes, but I went to the theater at least four times as a little girl with my mom so that she wouldn’t have to see Casino alone. My grandma would deal with my childhood nightmares post The Exorcist faster than she would sit through Cinderella. I suppose if I grew up watching everything imaginable that represents good cinema, it’s easy for me to believe that I can make anything imaginable and be a good filmmaker, while being black and being a woman.

Ashley Ellis is a writer and filmmaker in Los Angeles and founded the collective Emerald City Arts.

Revisiting ‘Down In The Delta,’ Maya Angelou’s Only Feature Film

Down in the Delta film poster.

Written by Janyce Denise Glasper

I love, LOVE Maya Angelou.

She is one of my favorite inspirational women of all time, and I could praise her remarkable contributions to writing and activism forever.

When I discovered that she directed only one feature film, a film I had actually seen long ago, I decided to give it another watch and looked online. Thank you, Netflix!

Down in The Delta, with a screenplay by Myron Goble, begins with Loretta Sinclair, an undereducated African American woman strung out on drugs and alcohol, raising two children in a three-generational household, and struggling to find a job in rough Chicago. Upset that she cannot answer a single mathematical equation or find a job sweeping or mopping floors at a corner store, she dives deeper into the free, alluring drug world and her mother has to save her yet again.

In films and television, the poor single mother angle never stops, and adding lack of book smarts becomes a horse beaten to death. I personally didn’t think Angelou would angle into this pigeonholed concept of minority women, but eventually Alfre Woodard turned into a “Phenomenal Woman”–just not in the most congratulatory manner.

Rosa Lyn (Mary Alice) has a big idea that will keep her daughter on the righteous track.

Rosa Lyn, Loretta’s savior of a mother, pawns off a sterling silver candelabra heirloom (which is nicknamed “Nathan”). Loretta looks at it both shocked and hungry–that notorious expression of a drug fiend knowing prize could score ample amounts of desired inebriation. Alas, Rosa Lyn only intends that Nathan be sacrificed in order to pay for bus tickets so that Loretta and her kids have a brighter future down south.

However, Rosa Lyn wants Loretta to earn the money necessary to get Nathan back in the family.

Rosa Lyn (Mary Alice) pawns off Nathan the candelabra for bus tickets to Tracy (Kulania Hessan), Nathan (Mpho Koaho), and Loretta (Alfre Woodard).

Away from tempting drugs and hardship, Earl asks Loretta to work for him at his restaurant, Just Chicken, and teaches her how to make his famous chicken sausages. She has a hard time getting it right, but eventually she does and moves onto playing a bigger role into the restaurant field. This leads to the most disappointing part of the film. She discovers purpose not just in the Delta itself, but inside of a greasy chicken sausage joint. The situation isn’t particularly humorous or exciting. In fact, speaking from a vegan standpoint, I find it pretty distasteful, especially as a climactic point. When the small town bands together to stop the closing of the chicken plant, it becomes a cheesy outstretched manifesto of people proudly boasting about their beloved meat, disregarding slaughterhouses where the most incredibly unimaginable suffering takes place–a sacrificial unwanted suffering so eerily similar to that of Jesse. Chickens are forced into small cages, plucked and boiled alive, and all kinds of other horrors before being murdered, but Angelou praises the long hindered stereotype about African Americans’ adoration of chicken. It is heard so clearly that ears start to bleed from preaching. One wonders if that passion would remain devoutly strong if fruits and vegetable crops were similarly threatened.

I’m not trying to bash the love of chicken, but the chicken and African American relationship is so difficult to handle that it in itself becomes ludicrously overdone. The closeness to joining hands and singing spirituals left behind a sour taste.

However, the story behind Nathan the candelabra serves as a better narrative and has Angelou’s signature poignancy all over the polished sentimentality. Jesse, a family ancestor, stole the valuable sterling silver antique from his former owners, an act of revenge instilled inside since age six when watching his father get sold off auction block style, as though he were nothing more than a common object, not a human being with mind and beating heart. Candelabra, named Nathan after a father Jesse never found, has been passed down to the male line, but Eddie gives it to Loretta, marking a new sense of tradition, a new entrusted foundation.

Years ago, no one would have ever considered her worthy.

Loretta (Alfre Woodard) and Earl (the late Al Freeman Jr.) have much in common.

Down In The Delta brushes on Alzheimer’s Disease and autism and beautifully weaves how family copes with the two perilous circumstances. In one of Esther Rolle’s final roles, she plays Annie, Earl’s wife. It is wonderful how much Earl cares about Annie and has overprotective need to keep her safe from harm. But he has to keep doors and windows locked, shielding Annie inside a childproof environment.

“First she couldn’t find her keys,” states Earl. “Then she forgot what the keys were for.”

Meanwhile, Tracy, Loretta’s autistic daughter, has screamed, cried, and hollered nearly the entire film, leaving terrified strangers to think her a monstrous and demonic child. In a scene after the bus arrives at a location, a distraught woman blasts Loretta’s parenting skills, blaming her for not being able to control Tracy. Everyone wonders why Loretta keeps Tracy inside of a crib, but like Earl, Loretta is protecting Tracy from endangering herself. Angelou parallels Earl and Loretta’s dealings with disease, their gnawing frustrations and little triumphs, and bridges their connection closer together. It is not romantic, but friendly, familial, and bittersweet, one that succeeds because they provide comfort to each other.

Loretta also spends time with Annie’s caretaker, Zenia who offers her beer. Now Loretta, appearing uncomfortable and noticeably silent, could have easily declined. Alcoholism is a real disease to master and for her to suddenly kick back and have a chuckle makes light of the real difficulty people have just being around a bottle–having one little drink (or in this case, a whole bottle) is downright impossible.

The late Roger Ebert, however, was one of several critics who enjoyed Down in the Delta:

“Angelou’s first-time direction stays out of its own way; she doesn’t call attention to herself with unnecessary visual touches, but focuses on the business at hand. She and [Myron] Goble are interested in what might happen in a situation like this, not in how they can manipulate the audience with phony crises. When Annie wanders away from the house, for example, it’s handled in the way it might really be handled, instead of being turned into a set piece.”

Down in the Delta ends with the “feel good” message that life can be filled with turmoil and can appear inescapable, especially to a minority woman, but it’s never too late to turn things around. After Nathan is “rescued” from the pawn shop and handed down to Loretta, everyone now trusts her, the threat of drugs/alcoholism disappears, and Earl promotes her to running Just Chicken so that he can spend more time with Annie. Loretta now has reached a positive place.

As director, Maya Angelou’s spirit floated between the Mississippi-centered delta, but sometimes drifted away like it was never there.

However, that doesn’t mean that I don’t want her to make another film.

In fact, I wish she would.

Our Stories: ‘Babylon Sisters’

Writer Pearl Cleage and Filmmaker Ayoka Chenzira

This guest post by Yvonna Russell previously appeared at The Huffington Post and is cross-posted with permission.

New York Times bestselling author (What Looks like Crazy on an Ordinary Day, Some Things I Never Thought I’d Do) and playwright (Blues for an Alabama Sky, Flyin West) Pearl Cleage has teamed up with filmmaker (Alma’s Rainbow) Ayoka Chenzira to produce the feature film adaptation of Pearl Cleage’s novel, Babylon Sisters.

Single mother Catherine Sanderson has her hands full with her job helping immigrants and a college-bound daughter, Phoebe. But when news journalist Burghardt Johnson blows into town, she finds her world turned upside down. Catherine, impassioned, asks,

I wondered if it was possible to be in love with a man and develop a vocabulary free of the responses that make every conversation a minefield of hurt feelings, half-truths, and dashed expectations.

Not only do they have history, BJ enlists her help in a story on a female slavery ring operating in Atlanta. Pearl Cleage fans agree with director Chenzira:

I love the flaws in the romance — it’s so human. The romantic leads have personal struggles but also understand that they are also fighting for something greater than themselves. Rarely do we see this in American cinema.

The story casts light on the fight against human sex trafficking. USA Today reported, “According to the U.S. Department of Justice, human trafficking has become the second fastest growing criminal industry — just behind drug trafficking — with children accounting for roughly half of all victims.” Atlanta Fox 5 reporter Tacoma Perry uncovered, “Atlanta is a hub for human trafficking — where sex or labor is forced, and it’s not just a city problem.” Chenzira echoes the condition of modern-day slavery in Metro Atlanta exposed in the plot by the lead characters Catherine and BJ:

Babylon Sisters honors the everyday heroes in the fight. There are people dedicated to rescuing those who are being exploited, abused and held captive by modern day slavery, and despite their own personal struggles they manage to make a crippling impact on sex trafficking … Atlanta is one of the largest sex trafficking cities in the country, and Babylon Sisters is centered in metro Atlanta — this brings a focused light in exposing this international criminal activity by unearthing the real tragedies taking place under our noses.

The film project has a platform on Junto Box Films. Junto Box Films, the brainchild of Oscar winner for Best Actor (The Last King of Scotland), director (Waiting to Exhale) and producer (Fruitvale Station) Forest Whittaker has established a social media platform to fund, produce and distribute films. Chenzira chose Junto Box Films over other crowdfunding platforms because,

The Junto Box platform allows people to support Babylon Sisters from the development process by signing up to follow, rate, and share the project through social media. Substantial support translates into a real chance of being green lit and fully funded through Junto Box Films. Junto Box allows supporters of Babylon Sisters to hear why Pearl and I decided to collaborate. It also allows them to hear from notable people about their support of this project through video. From the legendary Susan Taylor who served as editor-in-chief of Essence Magazine for twenty seven years and who is considered one of the most influential African-American women, to Broadway stage and film director Kenny Leon who produced Pearl’s plays. Junto Box uses a democratic process that gives people a voice to determine the success of a film about people with little or no voice. It is important for women in the film community to come together to tell the stories of women who donʼt have a voice.

The film project Babylon Sisters deserves our support for a master storyteller’s passionate and compelling voice on the inhumane issue of human trafficking today.

Follow Yvonna Russell on Twitter: www.twitter.com/StilettoFilms.

Women of Color in Film and TV: ‘Eve’s Bayou’ belongs in the canon

Written by Robin Hitchcock.

Eve’s Bayou dvd cover

Eve’s Bayou, Kasi Lemmons’s 1997 debut as a screenwriter and director, should be seen by every movie lover, every filmmaker, every storyteller. It’s a nearly perfect narrative feat, but it only generated minor waves among film critics upon its release (although Roger Ebert did name it his Best Film of 1997), and failed to garner mainstream awards nominations (it did better at the Independent Spirit Awards and NAACP Image Awards). In the intervening sixteen years I would have expected it to build up a huge following and status as a cult classic, but it is, at best, remembered as “a contemporary classic in black cinema.”

To be fair, one of the most remarkable things about Eve’s Bayou is that it features an all-star cast of black actors (including Lynn Whitfield, Debbi Morgan, Dihann Carroll, and Samuel L. Jackson), all playing characters informed by race, but not defined by it. Race and culture give Eve’s Bayou some of it’s richness and depth, but are not the main driving forces of the story. It’s sadly very rare to see a film about black people that isn’t entirely about their blackness.

Eve’s Bayou is also unusual in that it focuses on women, and is told through women’s point of view. Mainly, that of ten-year-old Eve (Jurnee Smollett), whose adult self provides the bookending narration: “Memory is a selection of images, some elusive, others printed indelibly on the brain.“

The power of memory and the unreliability of perception are the main themes of Eve’s Bayou, but these themes are infused into the story without reducing its clarity or straightforwardness. A bit of magical realism is used (in one stunner of a scene, Eve’s many-times-widowed aunt recounts how one of her husbands was murdered, and both women see the events play out behind them in a mirror’s reflection as the story is told), but these devices help ground the more fantastical elements of this story (including psychic visions and voodoo).

I was reminded of last year’s Beasts of the Southern Wild while rewatching Eve’s Bayou this week, as both take place in Louisiana, contain elements of the fantastical, and feature a powerfully-realized young black girl as their main character. Beasts of the Southern Wild didn’t work for me because I felt it sacrificed storytelling at the expense of its lyricism, which may be why the brilliant plotting of Eve’s Bayou stood out for me upon this rewatch. Eve’s Bayou leads you down a path where you think you know what is going to happen, but turns those expectations on their head in a ways that are both heartbreaking and moving.

Jurnee Smollett as Eve in Eve’s Bayou

I also think Eve’s Bayou is remarkably truthful and recognizable in its depiction of childhood, with all its joys, confusions, frustrations, and fears. There are many charming moments where Eve and her older sister Cecily (Meagan Good) and younger brother Poe (Jake Smollett) torment each other in ways very relatable to anyone who grew up with siblings or other children. But this film’s depiction of the challenges of childhood go deeper: we see Eve and her siblings wanting desperately to be included with and seen as equal to the adults (sometimes in very shocking ways), but also their anxiety and discomfort with growing older and leaving childhood behind.

All in all, Eve’s Bayou is a remarkable film that should have more fame and esteem than it does. If you haven’t seen it yet, it deserves the top spot on your to-see list.