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Killer of Sheep

Wednesday, October 26th, 2022
7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Details
USA | 1977 | Fiction | 83 min | English
Category
2022 VT International Film Festival
Film Type
Fiction
Cost
$12; Student w/ID $6; 10 Packs $95; Free for Pass holders
Location
Main Street Landing Film House
60 Lake Street, 3rd floor
Burlington, VT

Get Tickets Buy a Pass or 10 Pack

Director
Charles Burnett
Source
Kino Lorber
Sponsors
Bill Michaud

More than a landmark in independent filmmaking, Killer of Sheep is one of the finest films ever made about finding meaning in the hardships of everyday living. Set in the Watts area of Los Angeles—a predominantly Black neighborhood still showing the scars of the 1965 racial justice riots—Charles Burnett’s episodic first feature centers on a sleep-deprived slaughterhouse worker (Henry G. Sanders) and his proudly resilient wife (Kaycee Moore), whose marriage wavers under the burden of financial strain. With gentle humor and a discerning documentary eye, Burnett finds poetry in the rhythms of workaday life—the sensuous comfort of a warm cup of coffee; the transient thrill of a new car engine; the melancholy joy of slow dancing to a Dinah Washington ballad. Made for less than $10,000, Burnett’s UCLA thesis film interweaves street scenes of childhood play that serve as a Greek chorus questioning what it means to be an adult in a world where children grow up fast. ~LB

***Followed by an in-person Q&A with director Charles Burnett, recipient of VTIFF’s Award for Outstanding Contribution to American Cinema***

Thank you to UVM’s College of Arts & Sciences, Film & Television Studies Program and Humanities Center for assistance in bringing and hosting Mr. Burnett.