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For director Malcolm Washington, generational Black resilience and complex familial bonds are the underlying themes in front of and behind the camera for Netflix’s The Piano Lesson. Making his feature film debut, Washington enlisted the talents of his family as his brother, John David Washington, plays the lead role alongside appearances from his mother, Pauletta, and twin sister, Olivia. Older sister, Katia and father Denzel Washington are producers. Based on August Wilson’s 1987 play, the story centers around a bitter feud between two siblings (played by John David and Danielle Deadwyler) who disagree about what to do with the family’s antebellum-era heirloom piano.

Deadline: How did this adaptation find its way to you? Did Virgil Williams approach you first?

Malcolm Washington: He was involved in it many years before this started, but I don’t think he worked on it yet. So, I approached him with a take that I thought was interesting.

Jeremy O. Harris wants his upcoming feature “Erupcja” to inspire rising filmmakers — and perhaps inspire change among distributors.

The Tony winner told Variety that he hopes his secret film “Erupcja” (Polish for “eruption”) with director Pete Ohs could help resurrect the arthouse “micro-budget” films of decades past.

“I’m hoping that what comes from this is a lot more young filmmakers feeling less pressure to have their first, second, third, fourth, fifth feature be the $10 million, $20 million, $30 juggernaut they want with every person that’s like, the most famous person online,” Harris said. “And maybe, you know, something that’s like, truly honest, fun, and unique to them, that’s smaller, that maybe takes a really brave, exciting distributor to jump onto.”

Of course, this one has a pretty famous person online: Charli Xcx co-stars with Harris. The two also co-produce.

Harris added, “There’s so much pressure on everyone,...

In Episode 3 of Justin Simien’s film history docuseries “Hollywood Black,” the director looked back at the 1990s. It’s a decade in which Hollywood’s eyes were opened to the financial possibilities of Black creatives telling Black stories by the incredible box office and critical success of John Singleton’s “Boyz n the Hood” (1991). The film created such a cultural moment it would serve as a turning point, giving birth to a whole slate of movies, like “Juice” and “Menace II Society,” that told dramatic coming-of-age stories of young Black men wrestling with violence in American inner cities.

While the Black creators and historians Simien interviewed for the docuseries pay tribute to the artistic achievement of these individual films, “Hollywood Black” also explores how, collectively, this explosion of Black mainstream films was a double-edged sword for filmmakers. It’s a topic Simien discussed in further detail when he was...

Justin Simien’s Hollywood Black, an edifying if focus-challenged four-part docuseries about the central yet under-appreciated African American contributions to cinema history, comes with a couple of semi-contradictions.

The documentary’s entire premise is based on the inadequacy of how film schools address the topic, yet it’s inspired by the book by Donald Bogle, whose Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies and Bucks has been indispensable in cultural studies classes for 50 years. It presumably aims to bring its topic to the widest possible modern audience, but does so on a streaming service — MGM+ — whose footprint is rooted in the past and nearly negligible in the present.

Full of fascinating conversations with fascinating people and packed with interest-piquing clips, Hollywood Black nevertheless falls well short of resembling a definitive documentary on the subject. But even well-informed viewers are bound to come away with several insights and a few overlooked texts to seek out.

Most filmmakers only really get going when the pain of not making a movie finally boils over to the point where it exceeds the pain of making a movie. And once this pivotal point-of-no-return is reached, the accumulated velocity of ambition will not allow petty inconveniences to impede the ultimate realization of its goal. Not even a punishing lack of start-up capital–or even, it turns out, a torrential Southern California downpour choking the streets of LA to a frigid standstill.

So despite being rescheduled from February 6 due to an aggressive late-winter rainfall, Fi’s Filmmaker Tuesday session, The Evolution of Microbudget Filmmaking, finally happened last week on March 19, featuring a panel of four acclaimed indie producers and directors (not to mention Fi Fellows!) who have all managed to make big waves with their work despite microscopic production budgets. They were: Iram Parveen Bilal, Ron Najor, Gia Rigoli and Avril Speaks.

Just as the merits of sex scenes are being debated and intimacy coordinators are becoming production necessities, Bridgett M. Davis’ boundary-breaking “Naked Acts” is landing a timely re-release.

“Naked Acts” first debuted in 1996 but was never widely available to audiences in theaters. Now, courtesy of Kino Lorber, Milestone Films, and legendary filmmaker Julie Dash, a 4K restoration of “Naked Acts” will play in cinemas nationwide.

The feature is written and directed by Bridgett M. Davis, and centers on twenty-something aspiring actress Cece (Jake-Ann Jones) who lands her first leading role in a low-budget independent film. The only catch? The part requires a nude scene. Cece is forced to confront her shelved trauma of surviving sexual assault, her life-long body image issues, and even her relationship with her mother, who was a famous Blaxploitation star known for her sex appeal. Late Emmy winner Ron Cephas Jones stars as Cece’s supportive...

Barbara O. Jones, an actress in the independent Black cinema of 1970s Los Angeles in such films as Bush Mama and Daughters of the Dust, has died at her home in Dayton, Ohio. She was 82.

Her brother, Marlon Minor, confirmed her April 8 death to The New York Times and said the cause had not been determined.

Jones moved from the Midwest in search of a film career, and became active in the UCLA film school, a movement that has been called the L.A. Rebellion.

She appeared in several short student films, including Child of Resistance (1973), in which she played an imprisoned activist loosely based on Angela Davis, and Diary of an African Nun (1977), adapted from a short story by Alice Walker.

Her first leading role in a feature film was in Bush Mama (1979). The movie’s story followed the daily life of Dorothy, played by Jones. The film was...

Barbara O. Jones, the admired actress who emerged from the L.A. Rebellion movement of Black filmmakers at UCLA in the 1970s to star in Haile Gerima’s Bush Mama and Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust, has died. She was 82.

Jones died Tuesday at her home in Dayton, Ohio, her brother, Raymond Minor, told The Hollywood Reporter.

“Rest In Peace & Power,” Dash wrote on Instagram.

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A post shared by Julie Dash (@dash_julie)

For Gerima, Jones portrayed an imprisoned woman fighting for social justice in the 36-minute short film Child of Resistance (1973) — the character was inspired by activist Angela Davis — and a welfare recipient in Watts who undergoes an ideological transformation in the filmmaker’s feature debut, Bush Mama (1979). Both films were made at UCLA.

Jones starred as a Ugandan nun questioning her faith in Dash’s 13-minute student film Diary of an...

Ava DuVernay has only made five narrative features, but she’s one of the busiest women in Hollywood.

Before 2023, the California-born filmmaker’s last feature was her “A Wrinkle in Time” adaptation, released in theaters in 2018 — a five-year gap between releases that’s partially attributable to projects that sputtered in development like DC’s “New Gods” film and a Prince biopic. And yet, DuVernay has remained a constant presence during that relatively long gap, translating her numerous talents to producing and TV work. She created and directed the acclaimed Netflix miniseries “When They See Us,” about the controversial Central Park Five case. Several other TV projects followed, including OWN’s “Cherish the Day,” Netflix’s “Colin in Black and White,” and The CW’s “Naomi.” But while many of those projects have been terrific, it’s great to see the director of great films like “Middle of Nowhere” and “Selma...

February––particularly its third week––is all about romance. Accordingly the Criterion Channel got creative with their monthly programming and, in a few weeks, will debut Interdimensional Romance, a series of films wherein “passion conquers time and space, age and memory, and even death and the afterlife.” For every title you might’ve guessed there’s a wilder companion: Alan Rudolph’s Made In Heaven, Soderbergh’s remake, and Resnais’ Love Unto Death. Mostly I’m excited to revisit Francis Ford Coppola’s Youth Without Youth, a likely essential viewing before Megalopolis.

February also marks Black History Month, and Criterion’s series will include work by Shirley Clarke (also subject of a standalone series), Garrett Bradley, Cheryl Dunye, and Julie Dash, while movies by Sirk, Minnelli, King Vidor, and Lang play in “Gothic Noir.” Greta Gerwig gets an “Adventures in Moviegoing” and can be seen in Mary Bronstein’s Yeast,...

Exclusive: New York-based Women Make Movies has acquired U.S. rights for Palestinian Oscar entry Bye Bye Tiberias by Lina Soualem.

The intimate work sees Soualem accompany her Palestinian-French actress mother Hiam Abbass back to the Arab village within Israeli borders, which she left in the 1980s to pursue her acting career in Europe.

There, they reflect on her past as well as the lives of Abbass’ mother and grandmother in a powerful work exploring themes of displacement, identity and survival across four generations of women.

Wmm executive director Debra Zimmerman said the film was a “perfect fit” for the label, which aims to put spotlight on the work of female filmmakers.

“It is a beautiful film about four generations of Palestinian women,” she said. “I am thrilled that we have the opportunity to have this film seen widely right now by the diverse audiences that need and deserve to see it.

Chicago – Reflective and observational films … as if the audience is inside looking out along with the the characters … are very rare and takes a quality creator to pull off. One such film is “All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt” and it is written and directed by a quality creator, the poet-turned-filmmaker Raven Jackson.

Rating: 4.0/5.0

The film is a visual tone poem, as a woman named Mack (Charleen McClure) goes from her childhood to adulthood learning her life lessons – with its growth, loves, heartache and memories – as a black woman in Mississippi, with her sister ally Josie (Moses Ingram) and various friends, lovers and family.

’All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt,’ Written & Directed by Raven Jackson (inset)

Photo credit: A24

The film harkens back to an obvious influence, Julie Dash’s “Daughters of the Dust” (1991), but with a different story and a current generational point of view. Filmmaker Raven Jackson is contemplative in her energies,...

The sound of chirping cicadas, calling to their mates. The feel of the scales on a freshly caught fish. The way the late afternoon light reflects off a backwoods creek, as a fishing bobber floats idly on the surface. You hear thunder crack in the distance; you can practically smell the ozone in the air that lingers before a lightning strike. A hand dips into the brackish water near the shore, the dark silt run between fingers causing it to muddy and cloud before slowly ebbing away …

It is admittedly...

Do you see her? The Black mother wiping her son’s inner eye on a Harlem corner? It’s the late ’90s and she’s piecing her life back together after a prison stint. What about the mother positioning an infant for a photo? She works at a studio, tucked in a Bay Area mall, trying to make ends meet before the birth of her third child. Or the Black mother lounging in her living room during a party? Guests, drunk on liquor and a good time, buzz around her as a young girl plays at her feet.

These women are the central figures of three revelatory dramas released this year. In A.V. Rockwell’s A Thousand and One, Savanah Leaf’s Earth Mama and Raven Jackson’s All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt, which opens in limited release Nov. 3, Black mothers assume more complex roles than the ones Hollywood usually affords them.

There’s no joint like a Spike Lee Joint, but what other movies does the director love?

Over four decades and 30 films, Brooklyn-raised Lee has established himself as the type of director whose work can’t be replicated. The traits that make a Spike Lee Joint a Spike Lee Joint are easy to spot: the fiery and often political subject matter, the mix of humor with drama, those iconic floaty dolly shots, and an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach to stylistic experimentation.

Lee’s fearlessness as a director makes for a fascinating mixed-bag of a filmography. The auteur has at least three undeniable masterpieces under his belt: 1989’s “Do the Right Thing,” a searing drama about police violence and racism; 1992’s “Malcolm X,” an epic starring Denzel Washington as the titular Civil Rights leader; and 2002’s “25th Hour,” the greatest portrait of life in New York after 9/11 put to film. Depending on who you ask,...

While we’ve known the results of Jeanne Dielman Tops Sight and Sound‘s 2022 Greatest Films of All-Time List”>Sight & Sound’s once-in-a-decade greatest films of all-time poll for a few months now, the recent release of the individual ballots has given data-crunching cinephiles a new opportunity to dive deeper. We have Letterboxd lists detailing all 4,400+ films that received at least one vote and another expanding the directors poll, spreadsheets calculating every entry, and now a list ranking how many votes individual directors received for their films.

Tabulated by Genjuro, the list of 35 directors, with two pairs, puts Alfred Hitchcock back on top, while Chantal Akerman is at number two. Elsewhere in the top ten are David Lynch, Francis Ford Coppola, Jean-Luc Godard, Agnès Varda, Orson Welles, Yasujirō Ozu, and Stanley Kubrick, and tied for the tenth spot is Wong Kar Wai and Ingmar Bergman.

Check out the list below,...

“All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt” is an emblematic, almost impressionistic portrait of a young Black woman living in the rural south. Inspired by Julie Dash’s “Daughters of the Dust” and produced by Barry Jenkins, poet and photographer Raven Jackson’s feature-length directorial debut offers little in the way of dialogue or conventional narrative.

It is a distinctly unique motion picture, one unburdened by many of the trappings and guardrails present in most conventional narrative features. It was that freedom, and concurrent challenge, that was on the mind of its makers when writer/director Raven Jackson, alongside cast members Charleen McClure, Sheila Atim and Chris Chalk, stopped by TheWrap’s Portrait and Video Studio at The Music Lodge during the 2023 Sundance Film Festival for a conversation with Steve Pond.

Pond began the chat by inquiring about Jackson’s past tense triumphs as a poet and a photographer, asking if...

Raven Jackson started out as a poet, a background that is at the heart of her eloquent, imagistic first feature. All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt presents the life of a Black woman in the rural South through elegantly composed vignettes. On paper, that approach sounds too precious to live. As the story follows Mack from her girlhood in the 1970s across several decades, the film has minimal dialogue and a narrative that offers fragments of her life in time-shifting episodes. But miraculously, all its elements come together. Jackson’s risky, beautifully realized film puts a pure artistic vision on screen.

Jackson has cited Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust as an influence, and, as in that groundbreaking 1991 film, each scene is so deliberately composed that it conveys a wealth of information and emotion. Jomo Fray’s lush cinematography, shot on 35 mm, grounds the story in the landscape of woods,...

Editor’s note: This review was originally published at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. A24 releases the film in theaters on Friday, November 3.

A whispered symphony of sense memories that cycles through the decades like rain water — heavy with images and ambient sounds that trickle down from the generations above before they’re absorbed into the earth and suffused back into the air — the vague but vividly rendered “All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt” runs a little drier every time writer-director Raven Jackson loops back to squeeze another drop of meaning from the textures and traditions that connect a Black Mississippi woman to the place where she was born (and vice-versa).

Her name is Mackenzie, she’s played by a small troupe of different actresses over the course of Jackson’s freeform debut, and the body they share between them serves as a kind of living conduit between then, now, and whatever comes next.

Like so many indie filmmakers of the late 20th century, Ayoka Chenzira is not as well-known as she should be, nor has she made as many films as her talent warrants. But the ones she’s made remain impactful.

Her short “Hair Piece: A Film for Nappyheaded People” is celebrated as a first from a Black woman animator, and its focus on Black hair remains as timely as ever. And now “Alma’s Rainbow,” her 1994 feature-film debut centered on Black womanhood, returns to US theaters in a new 4K restoration.

Written, directed and produced by Chenzira — who has gone on to guide a new generation of filmmakers and new-media creators at Spelman for more than 20 years — “Alma’s Rainbow” captures the dynamic between mother and daughter during a pivotal turning point in the younger woman’s life. Like Leslie Harris’s debut feature, 1992’ “Just Another Girl on the I.R.T.,” “Alma’s Rainbow” is...

Though the different eras of global feminist thought are known as “waves,” which implies successive awakenings of liberation and critique, the film world takes an inordinately long time to develop alongside it. Amidst the social upheavals of the ‘60s, where previously “permissive” sexual content was finally allowed to be seen in mainstream cinema, the industry arguably became even more sexist, lecherous, and restrictive around female subjects.

There’s also a more subtle way to see the pervasive sexism of film culture: through documentaries, and broadcast TV on film criticism and history. While a titan like Pauline Kael could flourish on public radio (leading to her influential reign at the New Yorker), from Siskel & Ebert, to Scorsese’s Journey Through American Movies and onto the video-essay era, it is a sausage fest. Faint as it may seem, it makes a difference when an authoritative-seeming, patriarchal figure is alone on that pedestal,...

This month, ABC is betting big that viewers will tune into its ambitious three-part, six-episode limited series “Women of the Movement,” centering on 14-year-old Emmett Till’s brutal murder in 1955 that served as an important catalyst for the civil rights movement. With the ongoing investigation into the Capitol riot and reignited Critical Race Theory debates in the wake of Nikole Hannah-Jones’ “The 1619 Project,” the nation’s “wokeness” meter has arguably never been higher. But the question is whether a traditional broadcast network can succeed on a project first developed at HBO.

Consciously focusing on the role Black women played in the civil rights struggle, “Women of the Movement” centers on Till’s grieving mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, and her determination to bring her son’s mutilated body back to Chicago to “let the world see” (a phrase that inspires the title of ABC’s companion docuseries). We also follow the trial...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSAbove: Drive My Car (2021)List-making season has fully started. Film Comment released both the top twenty films as well as the top twenty undistributed films of the year, and IndieWire published the results of a massive poll of 187 critics. Vulture's critics have each written about their top tens, and Drive My Car tops both Barack Obama and Screen Slate's annual list. Screen Slate has also included individual ballots from "contributors, friends, critics, and filmmakers," which gave Paul Schrader the opportunity to rank The Card Counter as his pick for the best film of the year. Due to a nationwide lockdown in the Netherlands, the International Film Festival Rotterdam will be taking place online, cancelling its previous plans for an in-person event. There are two weeks left to submit to the Sundance Film Festival's 2022 Native Lab,...

The Southern Documentary Fund has just announced ten projects that will receive $10,000 production grants, unrestricted funds supporting projects in varying stages of productions. Half the grants go with aspiring and emerging makers, while non-first-time filmmakers include Julie Dash, whose highly influential Daughters of the Dust was the first feature directed by an African American woman to receive general theatrical release in the U.S. Says Southern Documentary Fund Executive Director Kristy Garcia Breneman in a press release, “This year’s applicant pool was rich with Southern talent, telling a vast range of powerful stories from across our region – we were […]

The post Southern Documentary Fund Announces 2021 Production Grants, Including New Feature from Julie Dash first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Journalists call it “burying the lede.” Universal’s “Candyman” opened at #1 to $22.3 million, beating its $15 million opening-weekend expectations by nearly 50 percent. Headlines trumpeted the impressive achievement, especially in a time when the box office is still struggling to right itself in a pandemic.

However, the biggest news belongs to its history-making director, Nia DaCosta. She is the first Black female director to have a #1 film at the box office. It’s unlikely to be her last; she’s in preproduction on “The Marvels,” the first sequel to “Captain Marvel” — another couple of firsts, as a Black woman hired as a Marvel Studios director and as the highest-budgeted film directed by a Black woman.

Ava DuVernay was the first Black woman to helm a $100-million picture when she directed Disney’s “A Wrinkle in Time” in 2016, but she remains an outlier: Even as industry inclusion initiatives abound, Black women are still...

Kaycee Moore, star of “Killer of Sheep” and “Bless Their Little Hearts,” died on Aug. 13. She was 77.

Born in Kansas City in 1944, Moore met director Charles Burnett while he was still in film school at UCLA, booked her first major role as Stan’s wife in his 1978 film “Killer of Sheep.” Burnett received an honorary Oscar in 2018 for his films such as “Killer of Sheep,” which depicted the realities of socioeconomic oppression faced by the Black community in Los Angeles in the 1970s.

Five years later, Moore starred as Andais Banks in “Bless Their Little Hearts,” which was written by Burnett and directed by Billy Woodberry. The film, which followed a family in Watts as it navigates race, money and gender, was met with critical acclaim.

Moore also appeared in Julie Dash’s “Daughters of the Dust” and the 1999 film “Ninth Street,” directed by Tim Rebman and Kevin Willmott.

Three...

After a hiatus as theaters in New York City and beyond closed their doors during the pandemic, we’re delighted to announce the return of NYC Weekend Watch, our weekly round-up of repertory offerings. While many theaters are still focused on a selection of new releases, there’s a handful of worthwhile repertory screenings taking place.

Film Forum

Le Cercle Rouge has been given a new 4K restoration, while La Piscine and 8½ continue.

Film at Lincoln Center

As the new restoration of In the Mood for Love continues playing daily, Joyce Chopra’s Smooth Talk begins a week-long run.

Museum of the Moving Image

“See It Big” has a major weekend with Daughters of the Dust, Beau Travail, The Piano, and Do the Right Thing; meanwhile, 2001 plays on 70mm this Friday.

IFC Center

The restoration of Lizzie Borden’s Working Girls continues.

Roxy Cinema

Prints of John Waters’ Polyester and...

The Alliance of Women Film Journalists (AWFJ) has partnered with film distribution company Kino Lorber to present a new film series titled “AWFJ Presents.”

Curated by esteemed female film journalists and critics under the new “AWFJ Presents” banner on Kino Lorber’s digital platform KinoMarquee, the inaugural selections include six exceptionally entertaining and relevant films by women directors.

Jennifer Merin, AWFJ president, said, “The alliance is very proud to partner with Kino Lorber for our inaugural ‘AWFJ Presents’ series to highlight some truly outstanding films by some of the world’s finest women directors. The films tell stories that are true to women’s experiences and represent women’s perspectives, but have universal appeal. We are also beyond appreciative of their enthusiasm and generosity regarding this partnership.”

Kino Lorber SVP Wendy Lidell, added, “It is as important to increase the number and presence of female film critics as it is...

Fox Corp. streaming service Tubi has made a deal with Cohen Media Group to put 80 of its film titles on the free, ad-supported platform.

Tubi will have exclusive free streaming rights to classics like Howards End and Daughters Of The Dust. More recent films that are heading to the platform include Agnès Varda and Jr’s documentary collaboration, Faces Places and Deniz Gamze Ergüven’s Mustang.

Cohen titles already on Tubi include Maurice with Hugh Grant; Farewell My Queen, starring Diane Kruger and Léa Seydoux; and François Ozon’s Double Lover and The New Girlfriend. The full slate will roll out throughout the month of June.

Fox closed its $440 million acquisition of Tubi last year and has steadily increased its programming offering. It now has 30,000 film and TV titles from more than 250 suppliers.

Tubi reported having 33 million monthly active users as of last fall. It has also said that streaming...

Top: the original DVD release of Michael Mann's Thief. Below: the recent Criterion Blu-ray after Mann's restorationWhen Dr. James Steffen was in high school, a friend had an encounter with a film called Invasion of the Bee Girls, a 1973 exploitation film. His friend described seeing the film—which included a number of scandalous scenes, including an explicit topless scene—broadcast on late night television. But when the film eventually made its way to home video, Steffen felt a little frustrated. Scenes his friend had described from the television broadcast were nowhere to be found. Somewhere along the way, some entity had chosen to excise certain scenes from the picture. All was not lost, however. In 2017, Shout Factory released the full, uncut film on blu-ray, and Steffen finally got to see the film as intended.Today, Steffen is a film and media studies librarian at Emory University, as well as...

In today’s Global Bulletin, the U.K. selects James Newman for Eurovision 2021, Ringside and Newen close scripted deals in the U.K., BBC commissions a young men’s mental health doc with Roman Kemp, and the New Voice Awards announces its 2021 short lists.

Eurovision

BBC, BBC Studios and BMG have confirmed that Brit Award-winning and Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter James Newman will represent the U.K. at 2021’s Eurovision Song Contest after the 2020 edition was postponed in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. The 65th Eurovision is scheduled for May and will take place in Rotterdam.

Newman’s original entry will be revealed at a later date, and the BBC and BMG will collaborate on the track’s release with BMG handling publishing. BBC Studios will produce the U.K.’s coverage of Eurovision 2021.

Among Newman’s catalog of original songs are “Waiting All Night,” performed by Rudimental and Ella Eyre; “Lay it All on Me,...

Exclusive: WME has signed writer-director Tina Mabry, who is best known for helming the 2009 critically acclaimed film Mississippi Damned starring Tessa Thompson.

Mabry is currently attached to co-write and direct Edward Kelsey Moore’s New York Times bestseller The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat at Searchlight. She’s a DGA and NAACP award winner for her American Girl special, Melody 1963: Love Has to Win on Amazon.

In television, Mabry served as a writer, producer, and director on OWN’s hit series Queen Sugar. She’s also directed episodes for shows like Insecure, Grand Army, 9-1-1, Dear White People, and Pose.

Most recently, Mabry teamed joined Gina Prince-Bythewood (Love & Basketball), Julie Dash (Daughters of the Dust), and Kasi Lemmons (Harriet) as a director on the limited ABC series, Women Of The Movement, from creator-writer Marissa Jo Cerar and a producing team that includes Jay-Z, Will Smith, and Aaron Kaplan.

“Harriet” star Cynthia Erivo and “Daughters of the Dust” director Julie Dash are among the 22 names selected to oversee the competition juries at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival.

Erivo and Dash will lead the U.S. Dramatic Competition jury this year alongside Hanya Yanagihara, editor of the New York Times Style Magazine and author of the novels “The People in the Trees” and “A Little Life.”

Leading the U.S. Documentary jury are Ashley Clark, a curatorial director at Criterion Collection and formerly the director of film programming at Bam, “The Act of Killing” director Joshua Oppenheimer and Lana Wilson, whose Taylor Swift documentary “Miss Americana” premiered at Sundance last year.

“Our jurors have reached a high level of achievement in their individual fields and can bring their unique perspective to the process of analyzing and evaluating films,” Kim Yutani, Sundance’s director of programming, said in a statement. “We’re pleased to bring this accomplished,...

With less than two months to go before Genius: Aretha finally hits the small screen, the Oscar nominee who is portraying the Queen of Soul is hitting this year’s Sundance Film Festival as one of the shindigs’ jurors.

Cynthia Ervio will be joining the likes of Sff alum Raúl Castillo as one of the 22 jurors at this year’s semi-virtual cinema gathering (see the full list of jurors below)

Watching films and conferring from home via the likes of Zoom, the jurors’ decisions in the six selection categories will be unveiled on February 2 at a now digital ceremony. Well, except for

the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize which has already been awarded to Son of Monarchs.

“Our jurors have reached a high level of achievement in their individual fields, and can bring their unique perspective to the process of analyzing and evaluating films,” Festival’s Director of Programming Kim Yutani said Friday.

The 22 jury members for this year’s virtually unfolding Sundance Film Festival have been revealed. Jurors include actors Cynthia Erivo and Daniela Vega, filmmakers Julie Dash and Joshua Oppenheimer, author Hanya Yanagahira (“A Little Life”), and many more. They will bestow awards on features and short films at the festival’s digital closing ceremony on February 2. The event will be live-streamed, and winning films will be available for special extended-run viewing the next day.

The awards, which recognize standout artistic and cinematic achievement, are decided upon by six section juries. As in years past, festival audiences have a role in deciding the 2021 Audience Awards, open to films in the U.S. Competition, World Competition, and Next categories.

As previously announced, the juried Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize was awarded to “Son of Monarchs.” Below are all this year’s jury members, with bios courtesy of the Sundance Film Festival.

The Sundance Film Festival has unveiled a host of industry heavy-hitters for its 2021 pandemic-era jury members.

Daughters of the Dust director Julie Dash, Harriet star Cynthia Eviro and novelist Hanya Yanagihara will judge the U.S. dramatic competition, as they figure among 22 jurors selected to award prizes from six competitions on Feb. 2.

Criterion Collection curator Ashley Clark, The Act of Killing director Joshua Oppenheimer and Lana Wilson, the Emmy-winning director of Miss Americana for Netflix, will sit on the U.S. documentary jury. And the World Cinema dramatic jury will be filled by Turkish producer Zeynep Atakan, Young Soul Rebels director Isaac ...

The Sundance Film Festival has unveiled a host of industry heavy-hitters for its 2021 pandemic-era jury members.

Daughters of the Dust director Julie Dash, Harriet star Cynthia Eviro and novelist Hanya Yanagihara will judge the U.S. dramatic competition, as they figure among 22 jurors selected to award prizes from six competitions on Feb. 2.

Criterion Collection curator Ashley Clark, The Act of Killing director Joshua Oppenheimer and Lana Wilson, the Emmy-winning director of Miss Americana for Netflix, will sit on the U.S. documentary jury. And the World Cinema dramatic jury will be filled by Turkish producer Zeynep Atakan, Young Soul Rebels director Isaac ...

Exclusive: ABC’s Women of the Movement has assembled a team of four accomplished Black female directors for the first installment of the potential anthology that celebrates the women of the civil rights movement. Tina Mabry (Mississippi Damned), Julie Dash (Daughters of the Dust) and Kasi Lemmons (Harriet) will join Gina Prince-Bythewood (Love & Basketball), as directors on the limited series, from creator-writer Marissa Jo Cerar and a producing team that includes Jay-Z, Will Smith and Aaron Kaplan.

The six-episode series, set to premiere in 2021, centers on Mamie Till-Mobley, played by Adrienne Warren, who devoted her life to seeking justice for her son Emmett Till (Cedric Joe) following his brutal killing in the Jim Crow South.

As previously announced, Prince-Bythewood, who executive produces, will direct the first episode., Mabry will direct the second and third episodes, Dash will helm the fourth and fifth episodes and Lemmons will direct the sixth and final episode.

Regina King saw every Black man that she loved in the men of “One Night in Miami” and wanted them to see themselves. “You better not ‘f’ this up,” King says she would say to herself during the entire shoot, and even after.

In this week’s Awards Circuit Podcast, King talks about why she wanted to direct Kemp Powers’ play for her feature directorial debut. The Oscar-winning actress of “If Beale Street Could Talk” has garnered loads of awards buzz for her breakout work that debuted at the Venice and Toronto International Film festivals earlier this year. Along with discussing her process and casting four extraordinary actors, she talks about what it would take for her to sign on for a second season of HBO’s “Watchmen” and manages to possibly get an inspiration on what could be her next project. Listen below!

Why did you choose “One Night in Miami...

“Is all or a portion of your spouse's income deposited in a checking account, joint checking account, your spouse's separate checking savings account, your separate checking and savings account…?” The administrator's tedious voice continues in this fashion, stern and unforgiving. More questions concerning money, welfare checks, and the daily American grind, asked by faceless system operators on the other end of a telephone line build layers of sound on top of metallic instruments, bells, and the buzzing of Los Angeles and the advertisements of an American dream. The dissonance of this swirling sound design, the intro of Haile Gerima’s Bush Mama (1979), takes one specifically to a place, a class, and a people: The Black working class experience, the sounds of a restless city. The opening of this mixtape encapsulates the vitality and experimentation of sound design and music in the films of the L.A. Rebellion, a film movement...

Not content with being the world’s most celebrated pop star, Beyoncé is emerging as a major figure in cinema too

Back in 2002, 20-year-old Beyoncé was appearing as Austin Powers’s love interest in Goldmember. She’s come some way since. In fact, as her visual album Black Is King drops, it’s safe to say that Beyoncé is now not just one of the biggest pop stars on the planet but one of the most significant film-makers too. Perhaps that hasn’t been recognised up to now due to her collaborative approach, which doesn’t fit into familiar “auteur” boxes, or because her visual work is not narrative-led, or presented through the usual cinematic channels, but as well as music, it’s clear Beyoncé has significant clout in film these days.

Exhibit A would be her outstanding Lemonade visual album of 2016. The film fused an array of influences – from...

Nearly 30 years ago, Daughters of the Dust ruptured the fixed line of film history. It was the first film directed by a Black woman to see theatrical distribution in the United States. It fit neither the Black history Hollywood co-opted, nor the modern Black story they allowed (urban peril). Daughters of the Dust portrayed a day in the life of the Gullah-Geechee community off the coast of South Carolina through their circular perception of time, a past, present and future that runs concurrently. Nana Peazant, the old matriarch, urges her successors to cling to their roots, to hang on to her, as each body holds both “the last of the old and the first of the new.” The younger generations plan to run up the river north, leaving behind Ibo Landing, home to centuries of their ancestors. An unborn child narrates from the future and dawdles through the present day,...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSAbove: Carl Reiner, Annie Reiner, and Mel Brooks, photographed together at Brooks's 94th birthday celebration.We're saddened by news that actor, comedian, screenwriter and director Carl Reiner has died. Mel Brooks remembers Reiner, his best friend, in a post reflecting upon their famous collaborations together. Sundance Film Festival director Tabitha Jackson has unveiled plans for the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, which will take place "live in Utah and in at least 20 independent and community cinemas across the U.S. and beyond." Elsewhere, the Locarno International Film Festival announced its 20 selections for the Films After Tomorrow program, which aims to offer support to productions that were put on hold by the health crisis. These films include films by Lucrecia Martel, Wang Bing, Verena Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Helena Wittmann, and Lisandro Alonso. Recommended VIEWINGArthur Jafa directed...

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The Criterion Channel, an online subscription resource for significant classic and contemporary films, has lifted the paywall on many movies and documentaries from Black filmmakers that showcase the Black experience. Cheryl Dunye's The Watermelon Woman, Julie Dash's Daughters of the Dust, and Oscar

...

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Other Links From TVGuide.com Daughters Of The DustThe Watermelon WomanJulie DashAgnes VardaShirley ClarkeOscar Micheaux...

With readers turning to their home viewing options more than ever, this daily feature provides one new movie each day worth checking out on a major streaming platform.

Some of the most exciting documentaries are the ones where the “documentary” label doesn’t do the work justice. Khalik Allah’s work exists within such energizing, unclassifiable terrain. By the time his “Black Mother” surfaced at New Directors/New Films in 2018, Allah had already established his bonafides: In two shorts and a pair of concise features, he has emerged as a genuine auteur, among the best directors documenting Black faces in contemporary cinema. Nevertheless, it takes under four hours to consume almost his entire body of work, save for a new feature that premiered on the festival circuit earlier this year; with the rest of his oeuvre on the Criterion Channel, now’s the ideal time to get caught up.

As both cinematographer and director,...

With readers turning to their home viewing options more than ever, this daily feature provides one new movie each day worth checking out on a major streaming platform.

Some of the most exciting documentaries are the ones where the “documentary” label doesn’t do the work justice. Khalik Allah’s work exists within such energizing, unclassifiable terrain. By the time his “Black Mother” surfaced at New Directors/New Films in 2018, Allah had already established his bonafides: In two shorts and a pair of concise features, he has emerged as a genuine auteur, among the best directors documenting Black faces in contemporary cinema. Nevertheless, it takes under four hours to consume almost his entire body of work, save for a new feature that premiered on the festival circuit earlier this year; with the rest of his oeuvre on the Criterion Channel, now’s the ideal time to get caught up.

As both cinematographer and director,...

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options—not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves–each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and an archive of past round-ups here.

Free Films Featuring Black Voices

If you’re not able to join your local protest, there are other ways to support the vital fight again injustice and police brutality. And if you’re looking to learn more about the black experience, especially in America, a number of films are now available for free. First up, The Criterion Channel has made available Daughters of the Dust, Losing Ground, Black Mother, Symbiopsychotaxiplasm Take One, The Watermelon Woman, and more films by black filmmakers for free without a subscription. Also available for free on other platforms is Charles Burnett’s landmark film Killer of Sheep, Ava DuVernay’s insightful documentary 13th,...

Tate Taylor’s 2011 drama “The Help” is the No. 1 most-watched movie on Netflix (per the streamer’s June 4 chart), which isn’t sitting right with a handful of critics and journalists as the movie’s popularity in streaming coincides with the nationwide protests over the death of George Floyd. “The Help,” based on Kathryn Stockett’s 2009 novel of the same name, has been criticized for its white savior narrative and for sidelining the perspective of black characters like the maids Aibileen (Viola Davis) and Minny (Octavia Spencer). The film was a box office hit ($216 million worldwide), an Oscar nominee for Best Picture, and an Oscar winner for Spencer’s supporting performance.

That “The Help” is pulling in such streaming numbers to top Netflix’s charts amid the George Floyd protests has prompted notable writers such as Ashly Perez, Rebecca Theodore-Vachon, and Ira Madison III to speak out against the film’s surge in viewership.

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The Criterion Channel, an online subscription resource for important classic and contemporary films, has lifted the paywall on many movies and documentaries from Black filmmakers that showcase the Black experience. Cheryl Dunye's The Watermelon Woman, Julie Dash's Daughters of the Dust, and Oscar

...

Read More >

Other Links From TVGuide.com Daughters Of The DustThe Watermelon WomanJulie DashAgnes VardaShirley ClarkeOscar Micheaux...

The Criterion Collection on Thursday joined the wave of industry supporters who’ve come out in the past week to help fight systemic racism, and help advocate for police reform and support protesters across America. From A24 to Bad Robot, film’s leading voices are stepping up in response to current events. In an email from Criterion president Peter Becker and CEO Jonathan Turell, the company announced a $25,000 initial contribution, followed by an ongoing $5,000 monthly commitment for organizations supporting Black Lives Matter.

But Criterion also announced that it’s lifting the paywall on select titles from Black filmmakers, and white filmmakers who’ve captured the Black experience through documentary, so that audiences at home can stream them for free, with no need for a subscription.

Titles streaming for free on Criterion Channel include Julie Dash’s “Daughters of the Dust,” Maya Angelou’s “Down in the Delta,” Shirley Clarke’s “Portrait of Jason,...