Creative Alliance’s monthly Blackscope Cinema Series expands our understanding and appreciation of Black Film in America. Through varying programming, including talks, demos, and making activities, the Baltimore community is invited to celebrate modern and contemporary film from Black and Diasporic creators.
THU FEB 2 | 7PM
Hargrove
A documentary chronicling the journey of trumpet legend Roy Hargrove’s last year as he embarks on his final European summer tour while reflecting on his life and the wisdom he wants to impart on young musicians. Director Eliane Henri hosts a Q&A after the film.
“It’s a film about artists and for artists in all art forms, not just jazz. It’s about exploitation, about handling your business and not putting all of your work in someone else’s hands. There are issues about drugs, health, management … all of the different kinds of things that artists are up against in their journeys. Yes, Roy is the vehicle for the story. But it’s about much more than just him personally.” – Eliane Henri (Billboard.com)
THU MAR 9 | 7PM
Daughters of the Dust
Daughters of the Dust is a 1991 independent film written, directed, and produced by Julie Dash. It is the first feature film directed by an African-American woman to be distributed theatrically in the United States. Set in 1902, it tells the story of three generations of Gullah (also known as Geechee) women in the Peazant family on St. Helena Island as they prepare to migrate off the island into the North. The film gained critical praise for its lush visuals, Gullah dialogue, and non-linear storytelling. The cast features Cora Lee Day, Alva Rogers, Barbara-O, Trula Hoosier, Vertamae Grosvenor, and Kaycee Moore and was filmed on St. Helena Island in South Carolina. Daughters of the Dust was selected for the Sundance 1991 dramatic competition. Director of photography Arthur Jafa won the top cinematography prize.
This screening features a floral art installation as you enter the theater.
SAT APR 1 | 7PM
Buck and The Preacher
Buck and the Preacher is a 1972 American Western film released by Columbia Pictures, written by Ernest Kinoy and directed by Sidney Poitier. With his rousingly entertaining directorial debut, Sidney Poitier, alongside actor-producer Harry Belafonte, helped rewrite the history of the western, bringing Black heroes to a genre in which they had always been sorely underrepresented. Combining boisterous buddy comedy with blistering, Black Power-era political fury, Poitier and a marvelously mischievous Belafonte star as a tough and taciturn wagon master and an unscrupulous, pistol-packing “preacher,” who join forces in order to take on the white bounty hunters threatening a westward-bound caravan of people recently emancipated from slavery. A superbly crafted revisionist landmark, Buck and the Preacher subverts Hollywood conventions at every turn and reclaims the western genre in the name of Black liberation. (The Criterion Collection)
THU MAY 4 | 7PM
Bebe’s Kids
Bebe’s Kids is a 1992 American adult animated comedy film produced by Hyperion Studio for Paramount Pictures. Directed by Bruce W. Smith, in his directorial debut, it is based on comedian Robin Harris’ stand-up comedy act of the same name. Harris’ character is voiced by Faizon Love, in his film debut. The film co-stars Vanessa Bell Calloway, Marques Houston, Nell Carter, and Tone Lōc.
Featuring a conversation after the film with Rob Lee of The Truth in This Art podcast.
