Pioneers of African American Cinema
3 Seasons
Among the most fascinating chapters of cinematic history is that of the so-called “race films” that flourished in the U.S. between the 1920s and ’40s. Unlike the “black cast” films produced within the Hollywood studio system, these films not only starred African Americans but were funded, written, produced, edited, distributed, and often exhibited by people of color. Entrepreneurial filmmakers built an industry apart from the Hollywood establishment, cultivating visual and narrative styles that were uniquely their own. Among the trailblazing artists whose work is featured here are Oscar Micheaux, the first major African American feature filmmaker, whose body of work includes BODY AND SOUL, starring Paul Robeson in his film debut, and WITHIN OUR GATES; Spencer Williams, whose masterpiece THE BLOOD OF JESUS is among the most celebrated race films of the era; Zora Neale Hurston, the renowned writer who was also a pioneering ethnographic filmmaker; and James and Eloyce Gist, DIY evangelist filmmakers whose fascinating morality tales were exhibited in black churches. This landmark collection, curated by scholars Charles Musser and Jacqueline Najuma Stewart for Kino Lorber, collects an astonishing range of features, shorts, and fragments. Taken together, these vital, long-neglected works represent a rich alternative history of American cinema forged by innovative artists who defied systemic oppression to tell their own stories on-screen.
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Pioneers of African American Cinema Teaser
Episode 1
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11:00Episode 2Two Knights of Vaudeville
Episode 2
Directed by Unknown • 1915 • United States
Starring Jimmy Marshall, Frank Montgomery, Florence McClainThe Ebony Film Corporation may have been a white-owned company, but African American producer Luther Pollard used it as a means of getting black faces on the silver screen, as in this slapstick...
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13:31Episode 3Mercy, the Mummy Mumbled
Episode 3
Directed by R. G. Phillips • 1918 • United States
One of Ebony Film Corporation’s most ambitious comedies is, like most of their surviving work, tragically marred by the decomposition of the nitrate film stock. Fortunately, enough of the storyline shines through that it may still be appreciated ...
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14:09Episode 4A Reckless Rover
Episode 4
Directed by C. N. David • 1918 • United States
Starring Sam RobinsonChased from his apartment by a policeman, ne'er-do-well Rastus Jones (Sam Robinson) finds refuge in a Chinese laundry, where he wreaks havoc and has a memorable encounter with an improperly filled opium pipe. A RECKLESS ROVER p...
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04:41Episode 5By Right of Birth
Episode 5
Directed by Harry A. Gant • 1921 • United States
Starring Clarence Brooks, Anita Thompson, Webb King
This precious four-minute clip represents the only surviving work of the Lincoln Motion Picture Company (founded in 1916 by brothers Noble and George Johnson). BY RIGHT OF BIRTH was the final pr... -
11:36Episode 6Regeneration
Episode 6
Directed by Richard E. Norman • 1923 • United States
Only a single reel of Richard Norman’s seafaring thriller REGENERATION survives, and that reel is almost completely consumed with nitrate decomposition. But watching the decayed images pulse and swirl, the viewer cannot help but contemplate th...
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16:13Episode 7Rev. S. S. Jones Home Movies
Episode 7
Directed by Reverend Solomon Sir Jones • 1924–1928 • United States
Amateur photographer Reverend Solomon Sir Jones used his 16 mm camera to capture candid glimpses of life in the African American communities of rural Oklahoma.
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08:45Episode 8Verdict: Not Guilty
Episode 8
Directed by James Gist and Eloyce Gist • 1933 • United States
In this surreal filmed pageant—presided over by a horrific skull-faced jailer in a nun’s habit—a woman faces the throne of judgment and must account her iniquities to earn God’s mercy.
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15:22Episode 9Heaven-Bound Travelers
Episode 9
Directed by James Gist and Eloyce Gist • 1935 • United States
Presented here are the only identified fragments of James and Eloyce Gist’s little-known follow-up to HELL-BOUND TRAIN: HEAVEN-BOUND TRAVELERS. A man wrongfully accuses his wife (Eloyce Gist) of adultery and banishes her (and their da...
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18:29Episode 10The Darktown Revue
Episode 10
Directed by Oscar Micheaux • 1931 • United States
Starring Tim Moore, Andrew Trible, Amon DavisAs a filmmaker, Oscar Micheaux was something of a firebrand, but his attitudes and methods were anything but predictable—often leveling criticism at certain strata of the African American community. H...
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10:07Episode 11Hot Biskits
Episode 11
Directed by Spencer Williams • 1931 • United States
Starring Thurston Briggs, Spencer WilliamsVirtually unseen for more than eighty years, Spencer Williams’s first film is a one-reel comedy short in which a rivalry between two men is played out in a high-stakes game of mini golf.
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15:27Episode 12We Work Again
Episode 12
Director Unknown • 1937 • United States
The role of African Americans in the recovery years of the Great Depression is the subject of this informational short, which offers an idealized depiction of life in a segregated society. The highlight, by far, is rare footage of Orson Welles’s “Voodoo Ma...
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03:05Episode 13Zora Neale Hurston Fieldwork Footage
Episode 13
Directed by Zora Neale Hurston • 1928 • United States
While a student of anthropologist Franz Boas at Columbia University, Zora Neale Hurston embarked on a journey through Alabama and Florida, using a 16 mm camera to capture life among the rural African American communities she found there. Hurs...
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Commandment Keeper Church, Beaufort South Carolina, May 1940
Episode 14
Directed by Zora Neale Hurston • 1940 • United States
This footage, shot by author Zora Neale Hurston in the Sea Island community of Beaufort, South Carolina, observes the religious practices of the Gullah people. The footage is accompanied here by field audio recordings by Norman Chalfin, who ...
