Bronzeville fest reels in local filmmakers
Chicago likes film festivals as much as parades. On the heels of the Humboldt Park Film Festival, which bowed in May, comes the first-ever Bronzeville Film Festival. Sponsored by the Third World Press Foundation, this neighborhood event intends to highlight films and videos "that communicate the sophistication, significance and history of the African Americans."
"Local filmmakers just came out of the woodwork," says fest coordinator Cathy Compton, marketing director for Third World Press. "We got more than we could show. I had no idea the local African-American filmmaking community was that large. There were so many people who just jumped up and said, 'Hooray! we have our own event.'"
"Local filmmakers just came out of the woodwork," says fest coordinator Cathy Compton, marketing director for Third World Press. "We got more than we could show. I had no idea the local African-American filmmaking community was that large. There were so many people who just jumped up and said, 'Hooray! we have our own event.'"
Next year the fest will come under the umbrella of the Bronzeville Cultural Festival, along with a planned Bronzeville Book Fair and the Lake Meadows Art Fair, which dates to 1956.
• McCormick Center, Illinois Institute of Technology, 3201 S. State; Carruthers Center for Inner City Studies, Northeastern Illinois University, 700 E. Oakwood.
• Admission: Free
• For more information, www.bronzefest.com
Next year the fest will come under the umbrella of the Bronzeville Cultural Festival, along with a planned Bronzeville Book Fair and the Lake Meadows Art Fair, which dates to 1956.
The Bronzeville Film Festival joins other local annual showcases for African-American and African cinema: the Black Perspectives series at the Chicago International Film Festival, the Chicago African Diaspora Film Festival at Facets, and the Black Harvest International Festival of Film, Video and TV at the Gene Siskel Film Center.
This year's theme is "A Tribute to Oscar Micheaux." A pioneering black film producer born in Metropolis, Ill., Micheaux was later honored with a Hollywood star in 1987.
The Producers Guild of America honored black film and TV star Tim Reid with one of its Oscar Micheaux Awards in 1999. Reid joins Chicago novelist Sam Greenlee for a screening of the 1973 film based on Greenlee's "The Spook Who Sat by the Door" at 4 p.m. Saturday. "Since this movie is the only true revolutionary film made by black Americans, I think it is important that it takes its rightful place in film history," Reid said in an e-mail.
Reid's career parallels Greenlee's plot, up to a point. He arrived in Chicago in 1968 as the first black from E.I DuPont's management training program. Greenlee's 1966 novel is about the first black agent in the CIA. Reid turned to stand-up and television, while Greenlee's hero goes underground to organize the Black Freedom Fighters of Chicago, a group that blows up the mayor's office in City Hall and gives the National Guard commander LSD. Shot mostly in Gary by director Ivan Dixon, "The Spook Who Sat by the Door" features a soundtrack by jazz great Herbie Hancock. Michael Kahn, its co-editor, went on to edit "The Color Purple," "Amistad" and "War of the Worlds."
"If you want to be a 'ho, go to Hollywood," says Greenlee on the film's DVD, restored and released as part of Reid's Obsidian Gold Series. "I don't write for black bourgeois intellectuals. I write for the people on the block where I live."
Greenlee charges that the FBI forced United Artists, the movie's studio, to yank his film, yet claims the FBI later assigned agents-in-training to read his novel about black urban insurrection.
The festival will showcase less subversive fare from Chicago independents. Titles of shorts and features include "The Kissing Bandit," "On the Grind," "Over the Rainbow" and "Billiken & Me," a 57-minute look back at Bronzeville's historic Bud Billiken Parade.
"The Future Is Now: Hip-Hop and New Media" is a series of free panels starting at 2:45 p.m. today at the Carruthers Center for Inner City Studies. Presenters include DJ Fink, Pam G, Teefa, Trey the Choklit Jock, Y'Tasha Womack, the founder of BlackFilms.com, an "iTunes digital content aggregator," and Dawn-Elissa Fischer from Stanford University's Hip-Hop Archive. This event is for anyone who wants to cross over from being a consumer to becoming a producer of African-American content -- perhaps the next Oscar Micheaux.
Bill Stamets is a Chicago free-lance writer and critic.