US Premiere of New 4K Restoration
Additional Films and Guests, Screen Share
The world premiere of a new 4K restoration of Jessie Maple's classic of Black cinema and the earliest surviving feature-length film directed by a Black American woman. Q&A to follow.
Recognized as the first feature directed by a Black American woman and the film debut of Loretta Devine, Will is a fixture in Black film history. The story follows the day-to-day life of the eponymous character as he invests the last of his waning athleticism into coaching a girls’ basketball team and navigating his loving wife’s suspicions that he’s using heroin—again. When Will meets Little Brother, a 12-year-old wise beyond his pre-teen existence who partakes in adult vices, he begins mentoring the youth and also starts to more seriously address his own sobriety. [80 min; drama; English]
The new 4K restoration of Will (1981) was a joint project between the Black Film Center & Archive (BFCA), the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture’s Time-Based Media Archives & Conservation staff, and the Center for African American Media Arts. The source material used for the restoration was a 16mm color print, held by the BFCA at Indiana University. The print was donated to the BFCA in 2005 by the director, Jessie Maple, and is preserved within the larger Jessie Maple collection. Work on the restoration was completed from 2020-2023, with generous funding provided by the SI-NMAAHC Robert Frederick Smith Center for the Digitization and Curation of African American History; Prasad (image restoration); ColorLab (film scanning, color grading, and laboratory services); and Audio Mechanics (audio mastering).
A Q&A with Black Film Center & Archive Director Novotny Lawrence and author E. Danielle Butler will follow the screening.
Any film screened at IU Cinema may contain content that viewers find sensitive or upsetting. Visit our Audience Advisories page to learn more.
