Isaac Julien – MRQE

Baadasssss Cinema (TV)

Sat, 23 Aug 2025 04:00:00 +0000

With archive film clips and interviews, this brief look at a frequently overlooked historical period of filmmaking acts as an introduction rather than a complete record. It features interviews with some of the genre’s biggest stars, like Fred Williamson, Pam Grier, and Richard Roundtree. Director Melvin Van Peebles discusses the historical importance of his landmark film Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song. For a contemporary perspective, the excitable Quentin Tarantino offers his spirited commentary and author/critic bell hooks provides some scholarly social analysis.

Cernobílá v barve

Tue, 26 Aug 2025 04:00:00 +0000

A two part documentary that details the contribution of black and Asian people to television history from the birth of television in 1936 to 1992. Interviewees include: Pearl Connor, Thomas Baptiste, Lenny Henry, Norman Beaton, Horace Ové, Carmen Munroe, and Stuart Hall.

Frantz Fanon: Black Skin, White Mask

Fri, 22 Aug 2025 04:00:00 +0000

Explores the life and work of the psychoanalytic theorist and activist Frantz Fanon who was born in Martinique, educated in Paris and worked in Algeria. Examines Fanon’s theories of identity and race, and traces his involvement in the anti-colonial struggle in Algeria and throughout the world.

The Darker Side of Black

Mon, 01 Sep 2025 04:00:00 +0000

An exploration of the homophobia expressed by reggae and rap artists againts gays and lesbians. Inludes interviews with rappers Shabba Ranks and Buju Banton, who cite religious reasons for their particular brand of homophobia.

Looking for Langston

Sat, 30 Aug 2025 04:00:00 +0000

A black and white, fantasy-like recreation of high-society gay men during the Harlem Renaissance, with archival footage and photographs intercut with a story. A wake is going on, with mourners gathered around a coffin. Downstairs is an elegant bar where tuxedoed men dance and talk. One of them has a dream in which he comes upon Beauty, who seems to reject him, although when he awakes, Beauty is sleeping beside him. His story and his visits to the jazz and dance club are framed by voices reading from the poetry and essays of Hughes and others. The text is rarely explicit, but the freedom of gay Black men in the 1920s in Harlem is suggested and celebrated visually.