Date & Time
Sunday, June 26, 2022
1:00 PM
Location
Logan Center, Screening Room 201
Admission
Free
Contact
Logan Center
773-702-2787
logancenter@uchicago.edu
Description
Screening Juneteenth: The Emancipatory Project of Black Independent Cinema
This June and July, join us for a series of free film screenings in celebration of Juneteenth, featuring selections from the history of Black independent cinema.
Drawing on what writer Toni Cade Bambara has described as “the emancipatory project of Black independent cinema,” this series hopes to consider what emancipation can mean as not just a single moment or static achievement, but as an everyday practice. Though these films don’t all engage directly with Juneteenth as a historical event, ritual gathering, or federal holiday, they all grapple with the character of Black life as it is lived in the afterlife of slavery. From the Gullah coasts and Louisiana marshes to LA boulevards and Texas suburbia, these films offer different stories in the ongoing anthology of African American life indelibly marked by the legacies of slavery and perpetually energized by the desire for freedom. As Black independent productions that both mobilize familiar cinematic techniques and forge new aesthetic directions, these films are themselves instances of the striving for freedom that Juneteenth calls on us to honor and enact.
A catered discussion will follow each screening. Free and open to all!
