Special Guest Scheduled to Appear
Home Is Where the Heart Is: Black Cinema's Exploration of Home
Explorations of transition as home, curated by IU Cinema guest programmer in residency and Black Film Archive founder Maya Cade, who is scheduled to be present to introduce this program.
African Woman, U.S.A. | Directed by Ijeoma Iloputaife: African Woman, U.S.A. is the story of a Nigerian woman studying dance abroad in America while supporting her daughter and two others back home. With a score interweaving jazz and traditional African music, the short film depicts the joys, pains, and dangers of the African immigrant experience in the U.S. Nigerian artist Omah Diegu (aka Ijeoma Iloputaife) is recognized as the first African woman to study television and film production at UCLA and is a member of the L.A. Rebellion film movement of the 1960s to 1980s. Digital preservation from 3/4” U-matic tape by UCLA Film & Television Archive, Digital Lab. [20 mins; drama; English]
My Brother's Wedding | Directed by Charles Burnett: Pierce Mundy works at his parents’ South Central dry cleaners with no prospects for the future and his childhood buddies in prison or dead. With his best friend just getting out of jail and his brother busy planning a wedding to a snooty upper-middle-class Black woman, Pierce navigates his conflicting obligations while trying to figure out what he really wants in life. In 1983, after many long months of shooting, Charles Burnett sent his rough-cut of My Brother’s Wedding to his producers. Ignoring his request to finish the editing of the film, the producers rushed it to a New York festival screening, where it received a mixed review from the New York Times. With distributors scared off, My Brother's Wedding was tragically never released. Film critic Armond White called this “a catastrophic blow to the development of American popular culture.” Now, following a restoration by the Pacific Film Archive (at the University of California, Berkeley) and a beautifully accomplished digital re-edit by the director, My Brother's Wedding is an eye-opening revelation—wise, funny, heartbreaking, and timeless. This director’s cut is significantly shorter than the original version released by producers (115 min.). [81 mins; drama; English]
"Burnett fills the film with voices and memories, humor and rage; his vision of neighborhood life has an ample, passionate generosity." – Richard Brody, The New Yorker
"Reaffirms Burnett as one of black cinema's greatest poets." – Nathanael Hood, Unseen Films
Home Is Where the Heart Is: Black Cinema's Exploration of Home is generously supported by the Women’s Philanthropy Leadership Council, the Black Philanthropy Circle, the Department of African American & African Diaspora Studies, Bloomington High School Black Culture Club, IDS' Black Voices, and the IU Black Student Union.
