Category: video

Filmmakers Cheryl Dunye & Dee Rees @San Francisco State University (Sept. 23-24, 2016)

cheryl-dunye

Portrait of Cheryl Dunye (https://apps.chss.sfsu.edu/newsletters/thewatermelonwoman/index.html)

 

Black/Feminist/Lesbian/Queer/Trans* Cultural Production: A Symposium Honoring the 20th Anniversary of Cheryl Dunye’s “The Watermelon Woman”

This symposium honors the 20th anniversary of Cheryl Dunye’s film, “The Watermelon Woman” (1996). The first feature film directed by and starring a black lesbian, the production of this film marked a watershed moment for black cinema, feminist cinema, lesbian cinema, and new queer cinema. Appearing in the heyday of what filmmaker and scholar Yvonne Welbon has called the “golden age” of black queer cinema, the film garnered widespread critical acclaim, and its success inspired many black lesbians to create their own films in the years following. Her latest release, “Black is Blue” (2014) is a critically acclaimed narrative short film that follows the life of a black transgender man in Oakland, California. Dunye continues to break ground through complex filmic representations of the intersections of race, gender, and sexuality. Thus, this conference honors Dunye’s growing body of work, as well as her cultural legacy.

dee-rees

Photo of Dee Rees (http://thefilmexperience.net/blog/2016/6/29/welcome-to-the-academy-683-of-you.html)

Dee Rees will be in conversation with Cheryl Dunye on Fri., Sept. 23, 2016 @7 p.m. Pacific Time at McKenna Theatre, Creative Arts Building, SFSU.

The Conference, sponsored by The College of Health and Social Sciences, Center for Research and Education on Gender and Sexuality, Dean of the College of Health and Social Sciences, Dean of the College of Creative and Liberal Arts, Jamie and Phyllis Pasker Funds, Queer Cinema Institute at San Francisco State University, Watermelon Woman 3.0, and Black Sexual Economies Working Group (Washington University-St. Louis), is free and open to the public.

For more information on the symposium, please go to: Watermelon Woman Anniversary Symposium

On Cheryl Dunye’s Watermelon Woman: The Watermelon Woman

On Dee Rees, see: Dee Rees at IMDB.COM

Discovery Channel’s Africa

Africa is a Country (Old Site)


The Discovery Channel and the BBC have joined forces to produce a new seven part series entitled, Africa. The series is four years in the making and brings together stunning footage of the landscapes and animals within the continent. The first episode focuses on the Kalahari Desert, while later ones will capture the wildlife in others regions spread throughout Southern, Central, Eastern and Northern Africa, with later episodes titled (you’ve guessed it), “the Congo”, “the Cape” and “the Sahara.”

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Martin Berger talks about his 2011 book, SEEING THROUGH RACE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEDnom7xma4

Professor Berger’s lecture at the California College of the Arts (San Francisco campus), November 17, 2011.

Professor Berger’s lecture at the California College of the Arts (San Francisco campus), November 17, 2011.

LMU Professor Examines Race in Comics

The Comics Observer

Loyola Marymount University‘s Dr. Adilifu Nama, Chair and Associate Professor of African American Studies and author of Super Black: American Pop Culture and Black Superheroes, will hold a conference tomorrow on race in comics.

Dr. Nama shares some of his findings in this video produced by LMU:

His take on Luke Cage as more than simply a blaxploitation character, which is typically how he’s dismissed, but a reflection of the debate about the criminal system and rehabilitation going on at the time, particularly stands out to me. This isn’t just another regurgitation of comics history but an indication of someone bringing their own knowledgeable perspective to the ongoing dialogue and analysis. I’m bummed I can’t make this conference, but I’m very interested in checking out his book as a consolation prize.

The colloquium ran from 9 AM to 4 PM and included a line-up of professors and professional…

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Video of the Week: The (S) Files

Black Atlantic Resource Debate

This week’s video feature is a bumper package of 9 short videos each relating to El Museo del Barrio’s 2011 Bienal: The (S) Files. The exhibition ran from June 2011 – January 2012 in numerous venues across New York. Although the exhibition has now ended it leaves behind this great online resource of interviews with the curators and artists involved – and a bit of funky music thrown in too.

The first video introduces the concepts and rationale behind the 2011 bienal theme of the street and features short interviews with curators: Rocío Aranda-Alvarado, Trinidad Fombella, and Elvis Fuentes.

“El Museo’s Bienal: The (S) Files 2011 is El Museo del Barrio’s sixth biennial of the most innovative, cutting-edge art created by Latino, Caribbean, and Latin American artists currently working in the greater New York area. This year’s edition spreads all over the city, showcasing a record 75 emerging artists in seven different…

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Video of the Week: After Hot-En-Tot: Two conversations with Artist Renée Cox

Black Atlantic Resource Debate

Following on from the popularity of an earlier post – If you don’t ask, you don’t get, and then you get kicked to the curb – focusing on the work of Renée Cox this week’s video feature includes two clips, each containing an interview with artist Renée Cox recorded at the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art on 22 October 2009. The first is a conversation with an audience led by former Spelman Cosby chair Lisa E. Farrington, Ph.D., John Jay College, CUNY. The second is a one-on-one conversation that appears to have been filmed on the same day inside the Museum’s gallery space.

Each clip presents Cox ruminating on themes and driving forces behind her work including Race, Gender, Womanhood, Representation and Femininity. There are some overlaps in the conversation of each clip but also some interesting divergences.

The first conversation is pinned around specific works of Cox’s…

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Video of the Week: Haitian Master Artists

Black Atlantic Resource Debate

This week’s videos wing their way to you from Gail Pellett Productions. These short 5 minute and under ‘mini-docs’ accompanied the exhibition ‘Haitian Art’ held at the Brooklyn Museum in 1978. Curated by Ute Stebich this exhibition was a landmark in the U.S. both in terms of its focus – as a major exhibition – on Haitian Art and its use of video within the gallery spaces.

Click the image links below to access five short videos: 1 introductory overview and 4 surviving videos out of 13 which each contain an interview with individual Haitian artists:

Haitian Art

“In 1978  the Brooklyn Museum mounted the first major exhibit of Haitian art in the U.S. — which later traveled to several other cities… Ute Stebich, the curator of this major exhibit, convinced the Brooklyn Museum to send a videographer  to travel around Haiti, shoot interviews with the artists and capture…

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Video of the Week!

Black Atlantic Resource Debate

We here at the Black Atlantic Resource are happy to announce a new feature: Video of the Week. Each week we will aim to bring you an interesting video – posted here within our debate space – which we have found freely available online. We are doing this to highlight the amount of potential research material which is now digitized and accessible by a click of your mouse!

Here’s your first Video of the Week: Cab Calloway – Minnie the Moocher

Cab Calloway and His Orchestra’s hit jazz song Minnie the Moocher is used here as the soundtrack to a Fleischer Brothers’ 1932 Betty Boop cartoon. First we get to see Calloway’s signature dance moves while he conducts his orchestra, the video then cuts midway through the cartoon to a dancing ghost walrus voiced by Calloway and sporting his moves! Cab Calloway was a hugely talented American bandleader, singer and…

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