• The Horse, by Charles Burnett
• A Day in the Life of Willie Faust, by Jamaa Fanaka
• Four Women, by Julie Dash
• I & I, by Ben Caldwell
• Water Ritual #1, by Barbara McCullough

The early 1970s was a very important time for people of color artist/filmmakers at UCLA.   After the arrival of future MacArthur Grant winner Charles Burnett in 1967 and Ethiopian filmmaker Haile Gerima the following year, there emerged a significant black independent movement.  The students develop a fecund, cosmopolitan and politically engaged movement that came to be unofficially known, as essayist Ntongela Masilela dubbed, the Los Angeles School of Black Filmmakers or “LA REBELLION”.

The first wave of these filmmakers also included Larry Clark, John Reir, Ben Caldwell, Pamela Jones,Carol Blue, Abdosh Abdulhafiz  Tommy Wright, Barbara-O, Charles David Brooks III, Jamaa Fanaka.  The second continued the remarkable cinematic work with  Julie Dash, Sharon Larkin, Barbara McCullough, Bernard Nicolas, Billy Woodberry, Jacqueline Frazier, Adisa Anderson, and Zeinabu irene Davis.   The program includes some of the short films by these makers pursuing less conventional modes of storytelling.

In person: Ben Caldwell, more to be announced

Curated by Ben Caldwell and Adam Hyman

Special thanks to the UCLA Film & Television Archive, Chris Horak, Shannon Kelley, Allyson Nadia Field, and Jacqueline Stewart for their L.A. Rebellion retrospective, restorations, and notes.

Tickets: $10 general, $6 students/seniors; free for Filmforum members

Available on Brown Paper Tickets: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/230891

Films to be Screened

• Hour Glass (1971, Digital video, b/w & color, 14 min.)
  Directed by Haile Gerima

  A young African-American male rethinks his role as a basketball player for the white establishment as he reads the works of Third World theoreticians, such as Franz Fanon, in  Haile Gerima’s “Project One” film. – Chris Horak

• A Day in the Life of Willie Faust, by Jamaa Fanaka

  A Day in the Life of Willie Faust, or Death on the Installment Plan (1972, Digital video, transferred from 16mm blow-up from 8mm, color, 20 min.)
  Directed by Jamaa Fanaka

  Jamaa Fanaka’s first project is an adaption of Goethe’s Faust, superimposed over a remake of Super Fly. A morality tale in two reels. – Chris Horak

• Medea (1973, Digital video, transferred from 16mm, color, 7 min)
  Directed by Ben Caldwell

  Video courtesy of the UCLA Film & Television Archive

  Made as Ben Caldwell’s first project at UCLA, Medea is a collage film that explores the information that permeates into a child before it is born. – Allyson Nadia Field

• Four Women, by Julie Dash

  Four Women (1975, 16mm, color, 7 min.)
  Directed by Julie Dash

  Dancer Linda Martina Young portrays the four Black women described in Julie Dash's dance film set to Nina Simone’s stirring ballad. - Jacqueline Stewart

• Water Ritual #1, by Barbara McCullough

  Water Ritual #1: An Urban Rite of Purification (1979, 35mm, b/w, sound, 6 min.)
  Directed by

  In collaboration with performer Yolanda Vidato, Barbara McCullough presents a Black woman’s attempt to expel the putrefaction she has absorbed from her blighted urban environment, while symbolically cleansing the environment itself. – Jacqueline Stewart

• Daydream Therapy, by Bernard Nicolas

  Daydream Therapy (1977, Digital video, transferred from 16mm, b/w & color, 8 min.)
  Directed by Bernard Nicolas

  Daydream Therapy is set to Nina Simone’s haunting rendition of “Pirate Jenny” and poetically envisions the fantasy life of a hotel worker whose daydreamsprovide an escape from workplace indignities. – Allyson Nadia Field

• I and I, by Ben Caldwell

  I&I: An African Allegory (1979, Digital video, transferred from 16mm, color, 32 min.)
  Directed by Ben Caldwell

  Weaving experimental, dramatic and documentary styles, Ben Caldwell’s I & I is a moving meditation on reciprocity. – Allyson Nadia Field

• The Horse, by Charles Burnett

  The Horse (1973, 16mm, color, 14 min.)
  Directed by Charles Burnett

  Charles Burnett employs a sparse lyricism in this haunting coming-of-age tale about an African American boy tending to a horse that is to be put down.

  "The Horse is a visually romantic and eloquent  film." —Dawn Spinella