Hidden Figures

ONE BOOK ONE NORTHWESTERN CINEMA SERIES HIDDEN FIGURES

WOMEN OF COLOR BEHIND THE CAMERA

FALL 2019 & WINTER 2020

Drawing on the example of the 2019-2020 One Book One Northwestern selection, Margot Lee Shetterly’s Hidden Figures: The Untold True Story of Four African-American Women who Helped Launch Our Nation Into Space, Block Cinema presented a yearlong series celebrating the history of women of color behind the camera. Featuring rarely-screened films and in-depth discussions with filmmakers and historians, these programs championed the scholars, educators, curators, and archivists who work to make hidden histories visible today. Co-presented by Block Cinema One Book One Northwestern, the Black Arts Initiative, SPS Graduate Programs Master of Arts in Liberal Studies, and Northwestern 150 Years of Women.

ONE WAY OR ANOTHER (1974/1977)

OCTOBER 23, 2019

In more ways than one, Afro-Cuban filmmaker Sara Gómez (1942-1974) was a trailblazer—the first woman director at the Cuban Film Institute (ICAIC), she pioneered a hybrid documentary-narrative form with her only feature, De Cierta Manera (One Way or Another). The film uses a fictional love story between a man and woman from vastly different backgrounds to study the complexity of postrevolutionary Cuban society. Completed after Gómez’s sudden death at age 31, One Way or Another stands today as a major milestone in both Latin American and Black women’s cinema.

OCTOBER 16, 2019

Block Cinema welcomed Chicago-based filmmaker (and Northwestern Film Studies PhD) Yvonne Welbon to present her 2003 documentary Sisters in Cinema. In the film, Welbon explores the history of African American women feature film directors from the 1920s onward, including Cheryl Dunye, Zeinabu irene Davis, Julie Dash, and others. An accomplished filmmaker herself, Welbon discussed her own experiences as a working artist, scholar, and advocate, including her current project, a brick-and-mortar cinema resource center on Chicago’s southside.

TWICE AS NICE (1989) WITH FILMMAKER JESSIE MAPLE

JANUARY 31, 2020

Competition, family, friendship, and community are explored through the lens of basketball in Jessie Maple’s Twice as Nice, which tells a story of twin college athletes competing to be the first female draft pick in the “MBA.” Rarely seen for decades after its debut, Twice as Nice was recently restored by the Black Film Center/Archive with support from the National Film Preservation Foundation, using long-missing elements discovered at a film lab. Director Jessie Maple is a true trailblazer: the first AfricanAmerican woman to join the International Photographers of Motion Picture & Television union, she also established a long-running venue for independent Black filmmakers in her own home. Maple appeared in person to discuss the film, and her new memoir The Maple Crew, which reflects on these achievements.

COMPENSATION (1999)

FEBRUARY 27, 2020

Zeinabu irene Davis’ 1999 feature is one of the most formally audacious and emotionally resonant films ever made in Chicago. Telling two versions of a love story between a deaf woman and a hearing man–one set at the turn of the 20th century, the other in the 1990s–Compensation adopts a playful, fluid style, drawing on silent-film tropes and experimental montage techniques. 20 years after its debut, the film remains a revelation. The event featured an introduction by Gerald Butters (Professor, MA in Liberal Studies program at Northwestern University) and post-screening discussion with Butters, Golden Owens (PhD candidate in Screen Cultures at NU), and director Zeinabu irene Davis (via Skype). This film has subtitles in English. The post-screening conversation was sign language–interpreted.

BLOCK STORIES

• Yvonne Welbon on the "Hidden Figures"

of Cinema History [Audio]

November 14, 2019 • "I invest in myself and I make my films":

Jessie Maple on breaking boundaries and filmmaking [Audio]

February 6, 2020