Spirits of Rebellion: Screening

Spirits of Rebellion provides the context and history of a group of filmmakers who came out of the UCLA film school with an agenda. Though they were of very diverse origins and with divergent ideas, these media artists shared a desire to create an alternative to the dominant American mode of cinema. The hope of this group was to realize a cinema of informed, relevant and unfettered black expression.

Headlined by Julie Dash (Daughters of the Dust), Charles Burnett (To Sleep with Anger), Jamaa Fanaka (Penitentiary), Haile Gerima (Sankofa), Billy Woodberry (Bless Their Little Hearts), Barbara McCullough (Water Ritual), Ben Caldwell (I & I: An African Allegory; Kaos Network), Alile Sharon Larkin (Dreadlocks and the Three Bears, A Different Image), Larry Clark (Passing Through) and Carroll Parrott Blue (Varnette's World: A Study of a Young Artist, The Dawn at my Back) and Zeinabu Davis (Cycles, Compensation); the LA Rebellion filmmakers collectively imagined and created a black cinema against the conventions of Hollywood and Blaxploitation films by attending to the quiet moments of everyday life in their communities, and paying homage to the dignity of their characters.

Directly following the screening will be a discussion and Q&A with Director Zeinabu irene Davis, facilitated by members of the Black Cinema Collective.

About the Director:

Zeinabu irene Davis is an independent filmmaker and Professor of Communication at University of California, San Diego. Some of her award-winning works include a drama about a young slave girl for both children and adults, Mother of the River (1996); a personal essay on breastfeeding, Co-Motion (2010) and an experimental narrative, Cycles (1989). Her dramatic feature film entitled Compensation (1999) features two inter-related love stories that offer a view of Black deaf culture and was the winner of the Gordon Parks Award for Directing from the Independent Feature Project and was selected for the Sundance Dramatic Film Competition. Spirits of Rebellion is her latest release and won the African Oscar for Best Diaspora Documentary at the African Movie Academy in Nigeria. Recently, Spirits... also won Best Feature Documentary and an Audience Award for Best Film from the BlackStar Film Festival in Philadelphia.