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From the same folks who brought you The Future Weird last month (which included a screening of Cameroonian director Jean-Pierre Bekolo’s satirical sci-fi vampire film Les Saignantes), comes another screening series event titled The Future Weird: Black Atlantis, which will include the U.S. premiere of Simon Rittmeier's Burkina Faso-shot, 30-minute 16mm sci-fi film Drexciya, as well as shorts from Akosua Adoma Owusu, Nikyatu Jusu, Barry Jenkins, Kibwe Tavares + more. All names I'm sure you're familiar with.The event will take place on Monday, August 26 at 8pm, also at Spectacle Theater (like the last screening series),...

An intriguing event taking this week, Wednesday, July 31, at Spectacle Theater, 124 S. 3rd Street, Brooklyn, New York 11211. Included in the screening series is Cameroonian director Jean-Pierre Bekolo’s satirical sci-fi vampire film Les Saignantes (The Bleeders), a film I saw here in NYC about 4 years ago. In short, the film (billed as sci-fi, although it's more of a genre-busting trip) is about 2 high-class prostitutes, who also happen to be lesbians (they call themselves "Les Saignantes," or "The Bleeders" or "The Bloodettes") in the year 2025, who use their sexuality to gain access to some of the highest ranking political officials in Cameroon, supposedly with...

In case you haven’t heard… today is the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day!

And while you can visit the International Women’s Day website (Here) to network and learn about or share related news, events, resources, and much more, here at Shadow And Act, I’m making my small contribution to celebrate the occasion with a survey… yes, I’m making you work on International Women’s Day

But I think you’ll like the question and find it easy enough to answer, so here it goes… list your top 5 black feminist/black woman-centered films. Like I said, easy enough, right?

I suspect we’ll see some mentions of Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust, Kasi Lemmons’ Eve’s Bayou, Cheryl Dunye’s Watermelon Woman, or Ayoka Chenzira’s Alma’s Rainbow, or maybe even Tyler Perry’s For Colored Girls, or really almost all of Tyler Perry’s films.

Skimming the just-released list of titles in the Berlinale Forum next month – the festival’s section dedicated to avant-garde and experimental filmmaking…

Immediately noticed Congolese filmmaker Djo Tunda Wa Munga’s Viva Riva!, which screened at the Toronto Film Festival last fall, as This post from Sergio last August mentions.

I thought I’d mention the film again, as I’ve uncovered a few still images from it, as well as a poster (to the left), and some first impressions; but, unfortunately, still no trailer.

But first, let me say that it’s certainly very rare to hear/read the words “avant-garde” or “experimental filmmaking,” and African cinema from any country, spoken or written in the same sentence. Not that filmmakers in (or films about) Africa don’t work in those styles… we can go back to the films of Jean Rouch and his “mentees,” as well as Ousmane Sembene’s La Noire De,...

I actually saw this film here in NYC about 2 years ago… other than the soundtrack, which I dug, the film didn’t do much for me. Being part Cameroonian (the filmmaker is Cameroonian, and the film is set there), I really wanted it to like it. But didn’t. Although I didn’t hate it.

However, being that I’m much more Zen nowadays, and have been revisiting films from past years that I initially didn’t care for, I’m going to give it a second look, and see if my reception of it changes. Watching the trailer for Pumzi, the Kenyan sci-fi dramatic short which just screened at Sundance, reminded me of it. And, given that most of you likely haven’t heard of it, consider this your intro.

In short, the film (billed as sci-fi, although it’s more of a genre-busting trip) is about 2 high-class prostitutes (they call themselves “Les Saignantes,...