Brooklyn theater BAMcinématek is celebrating women directors and black cinema in two of its upcoming film series. The venue will host “New Voices in Black Cinema” April 26–29 as well as “A Different Picture: Women Filmmakers in the New Hollywood Era, 1967–1980” May 2–20, it has announced.
“New Voices in Black Cinema” “provides a showcase of new and established voices in black independent cinema reflecting the wide spectrum of stories by and about African diasporic communities in the United States and beyond,” a press release details. The program’s opening film is Rungano Nyoni’s debut feature, “I Am Not a Witch.” The BAFTA winner follows a young girl in modern Zambia who, after being accused of witchcraft, is exiled from her village to a witch camp.
Among the titles screening at “New Voices in Black Cinema” are Nijla Mu’min’s SXSW winner “Jinn,” which centers on a teen whose life is thrown off-balance by her mother’s conversion to Islam, and Aminah Abdul-Jabbaar’s rom-com “Muslimah’s Guide to Marriage,” which sees a devout black Muslim woman attempting to heal a broken marriage. Also screening is Rian Brown and Geoffrey Pingree’s doc “The Foreigner’s Home,” which examines Toni Morrison’s work and the question she asked in a 2006 art exhibit: “Who is the foreigner?”
For more information about “New Voices in Black Cinema” and its full schedule, go to the film series’ website.
“A Different Picture: Women Filmmakers in the New Hollywood Era” “is a redress to the established ‘Easy Riders’ and ‘Raging Bulls’ narratives; women from coast to coast radically altering film form, film subject, and film power structures,” explains series programmer Jesse Trussell. The series will present works from some of the most prodigious U.S. women directors released from 1967 to 1980.
The program will kick off with Claudia Weill’s “It’s My Turn,” which stars the late Jill Clayburgh as a woman caught between two men and two different career paths. Weill is set to appear at the screening. Another of the director’s films, “Girlfriends,” will close “A Different Picture.” The film explores what happens to female friendship when one friend gets married and seemingly leaves the other behind.
Julia Reichert will appear at the series for the screening of her “Growing Up Female,” a documentary about the socialization of women and girls. Christine Choy will participate in a post-screening Q&A of “From Spikes to Spindles,” her doc about the political awakenings in Chinatown during the ‘70s.
Features from Elaine May, Joan Micklin Silver, Jane Giese, Kathleen Collins, and Sylvia Morales, and shorts by Julie Dash and Kathryn Bigelow will also be included in the series.
Keep an eye on BAMcinématek’s website for more info about “A Different Picture” and its full schedule.
