Spirits of Rebellion: Black Independent Cinema from Los Angeles
Essential Documentaries
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1h 41m
Directed by Zeinabu irene Davis | 101 mins | 2016
Davis’s documentary on the LA Rebellion, a surge of artistically ambitious, far-from-the-mainstream Black-American-directed films that came out of southern California—specifically, out of the UCLA film production program—beginning in the late ’70s, gets up close and personal with leading lights of the movement including Charles Burnett, Julie Dash, Haile Gerima, Billy Woodberry, Barbara McCullough, Ben Caldwell, and Davis herself, with those who witnessed it firsthand setting the record straight about the facts of the Rebellion and offering their individual answers to the question: “What is a Black film?” A rousing lesson in Black cinema history that looks forward to its future.
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