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A program of three short films
Illusions | Julie Dash | 1982 | 34 mins
“Now I am an illusion, just like the films. They see me but they can’t recognize me.” So states the protagonist of Illusions. The time is 1942, a year after Pearl Harbor; the place is National Studios, a fictitious Hollywood motion picture studio. Mignon Duprée, a Black woman studio executive who appears to be white and Ester Jeeter, an African American woman who is the singing voice for a white Hollywood star are forced to come to grips with a society that perpetuates false images as status quo. Dash’s Illusions calls attention to the ways in which the Hollywood studio system created the illusions that forced African-American women to the wayside of film history only to be forgotten. Illusions follows Mignon’s dilemma, Ester’s struggle and the use of cinema in wartime Hollywood: three illusions in conflict with reality.
“One of the most brilliant achievements in style and concept in recent American filmmaking…” ~ Clyde Taylor Guest Curator Whitney Museum of Art
“Cleverly uses film itself as a metaphor for the myths fostered by whites and men about Blacks and women.” ~ Marcia Pally Village Voice
Blackout | Natasha Ngaiza | 2013 | 14 mins
A sudden power outage leads to an impromptu shadow performance that inspires an African immigrant to revisit the past and confront her marriage. Blackout explores the intricacies of transnational African identity, motherhood and memory. “This film was born out of the experiences of my mother, my aunts and my grandmothers: immigrant women who have spent decades making homes away from home; passing down memories of cultures, histories and language to their children.” ~ Natasha Ngaiza
A Mother | Natasha Ngaiza | 2020 | 16 mins
As a town copes with the disappearance of a little girl, a mother of two must come to terms with her own decision to abort an unexpected pregnancy. “A Mother was written in the wake of the first wave of the Black Lives Matter movement. It was written after learning that mothers are more likely to get abortion than non-mothers. It was written after the ProPublica report headlined, “Nothing Protects Black Women from Dying in Pregnancy and Childbirth” while pregnant with my third child. It was written to honor Black motherhood in the U.S., the beauty, the heartache, the mess, the loss and the hope.
Read interview with Ngaiza here: http://moveablefest.com/natasha-ngaiza-mother/
*** As a bonus, Pass and ticket holders can watch Natasha Ngaiza in conversation with Dr. Paula Willoquet-Maricondi, Dean of Communication and Creative Media at Champlain College.
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