Justin Simien’s Adventures in Moviegoing
7 Episodes
What would the world look like if Charles Burnett and Kathleen Collins were spoken of in the same terms as Fritz Lang and Stanley Kubrick? That’s the question at the heart of this edition of Adventures in Moviegoing, in which Justin Simien, the creator of DEAR WHITE PEOPLE and BAD HAIR, sits down with fellow filmmaker Janicza Bravo to discuss the decades-long erasure of Black artists from the cinematic canon, the expectations and constraints faced by contemporary Black directors, and why, in Simien’s opinion, every Black film is an experimental film. Their incisive conversation is presented alongside a selection of some of Simien’s favorite touchstones of Black cinema, including Gordon Parks’s gorgeous coming-of-age odyssey THE LEARNING TREE—the first major studio film made by an African American director—and Collins’s luminous character study LOSING GROUND.
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23:43Episode 1Justin Simien in Conversation
Episode 1
Justin Simien, the creator of DEAR WHITE PEOPLE and BAD HAIR, sits down with fellow filmmaker Janicza Bravo in this edition of Adventures in Moviegoing.
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05:38Episode 2Justin Simien on SYMBIOPSYCHOTAXIPLASM
Episode 2
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1:15:23Episode 3Symbiopsychotaxiplasm Take One
Episode 3
Directed by William Greaves • 1968 • United States
Starring William Greaves, Patricia Ree Gilbert, Don FellowsIn his one-of-a-kind fiction/documentary hybrid SYMBIOPSYCHOTAXIPLASM TAKE ONE, director William Greaves presides over a beleaguered film crew in New York’s Central Park, leaving them t...
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04:23Episode 4Justin Simien on LOSING GROUND
Episode 4
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1:25:55Episode 5Losing Ground
Episode 5
Directed by Kathleen Collins • 1982 • United States
Starring Seret Scott, Bill Gunn, Duane JonesOne of the first feature films directed by an African American woman, Kathleen Collins’s LOSING GROUND tells the story of a marriage between two remarkable people, both at a crossroads in their lives...
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04:28Episode 6Justin Simien on DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST
Episode 6
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1:52:26Episode 7Daughters of the Dust
Episode 7
Directed by Julie Dash • 1991 • United States
Starring Cora Lee Day, Alva Rogers, Barbara O. JonesJulie Dash’s rapturous vision of black womanhood and vanishing ways of life in the turn-of-the-century South was the first film directed by an African American woman to receive a wide release. In 1...