Directed by Christopher Harris • 2000 • United States
A masterpiece of American avant-garde cinema, Christopher Harris’s 2000 thesis film is a haunting record of the crumbling, eerily depopulated landscapes of St. Louis’s north side, an area almost exclusively inhabited by working-class and working-poor African Americans. Shooting in evocatively ghostly black-and-white 16 mm, Harris crafts an at once sorrowful and searching study of urban decay that speaks pointedly to America’s history of racial injustice.
Up Next in Celebrate Black History
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The Inheritance
Directed by Ephraim Asili • 2020 • United States
After nearly a decade exploring different facets of the African diaspora—and his own place within it—Ephraim Asili makes his feature-length debut with this astonishing ensemble work set almost entirely within a West Philadelphia house inhabited by...
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Black Panthers
Directed by Agnès Varda • 1970 • United States
Agnès Varda turns her camera on an Oakland demonstration against the imprisonment of activist and Black Panthers cofounder Huey P. Newton. In addition to evincing Varda’s fascination with her adopted surroundings and her empathy, this perceptive sho...
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Paul Robeson: Tribute to an Artist
Directed by Saul J. Turell • 1979 • United States
Saul J. Turell's Academy Award-winning documentary short Paul Robeson: Tribute to an Artist, narrated by Sidney Poitier, traces his career through his activism and his socially charged performances of his signature song, "Ol' Man River."
