Agnes Varda is most celebrated as the lovable storyteller of “Faces/Places” and the New Wave auteur behind “Cleo from 5 to 7,” but in 1968, her career took a detour. While husband Jacques Demy was shooting “Model Shop” in Los Angeles, Varda hung around the Bay Area to make two half-hour documentaries about the Black Panther Party and its efforts to free Huey P. Newton from prison.
“Huey” provides a dramatic collection of footage surrounding the campaign to free Newton after he was jailed for allegedly shooting police office James Frey. However, “Black Panthers” digs deeper into the circumstances surrounding the rallies to explore the nature of the Black Panther Party itself.
The result is a sobering account of the group’s activist intent, delivered almost entirely in its own words. Beyond the striking contrast to the vilification of the Black Panther Party in American media at the time, Varda’s absorbing...
“Huey” provides a dramatic collection of footage surrounding the campaign to free Newton after he was jailed for allegedly shooting police office James Frey. However, “Black Panthers” digs deeper into the circumstances surrounding the rallies to explore the nature of the Black Panther Party itself.
The result is a sobering account of the group’s activist intent, delivered almost entirely in its own words. Beyond the striking contrast to the vilification of the Black Panther Party in American media at the time, Varda’s absorbing...
- 6/2/2020
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman made its Croisette debut last night to a rapturous welcome, complete with that most over-hyped of Cannes staples: the endless standing ovation. No surprise. Lee’s first movie in Cannes’ main competition since Jungle Fever in 1991 is a searing call-to-arms to a post-Charlottesville world, and the filmmaker’s most impressive work in years.
Earlier in the day, before the movie screened, Lee visited Deadline’s Cannes Studio with his stars John David Washington and Laura Harrier to talk us through his attraction to the story. Washington plays Ron Stallworth, a Colorado Springs undercover officer who successfully infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan, ultimately becoming the leader of its local chapter and gaining the trust of Grand Wizard David Duke (Topher Grace).
The project came to Lee after being developed by Blumhouse and Get Out director Jordan Peele. Peele immediately identified Lee as the man to bring it to the screen.
Earlier in the day, before the movie screened, Lee visited Deadline’s Cannes Studio with his stars John David Washington and Laura Harrier to talk us through his attraction to the story. Washington plays Ron Stallworth, a Colorado Springs undercover officer who successfully infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan, ultimately becoming the leader of its local chapter and gaining the trust of Grand Wizard David Duke (Topher Grace).
The project came to Lee after being developed by Blumhouse and Get Out director Jordan Peele. Peele immediately identified Lee as the man to bring it to the screen.
- 5/15/2018
- by Joe Utichi
- Deadline Film + TV
A version of this story about Laura Harrier first appeared in TheWrap’s magazine’s Cannes issue.
Laura Harrier was on vacation on a beach in Greece when she got a call from an unfamiliar number. “I answered the phone and heard, ‘Laura, this is Spike Lee,'” she said with a laugh. “Whaaat??? I didn’t know Spike Lee, but he wanted me to come back to New York and audition for “BlacKkKlansman.” I had to figure out how to get off that island and fly home the next day, and I was thinking, ‘I’d better get this part.'”
She got the part after a marathon audition that found her doing improv with Lee himself. “I did not walk into it expecting to be reading with him — that was another level of intimidation,” she said. “It was my longest audition ever, and I walked out hoping that that was a good sign.”
It was, and Harrier now returns to the Mediterranean as one of the most buzzed-about actresses at the Cannes Film Festival. For a 28-year-old from Chicago whose splashiest role to date has been as Peter Parker’s homecoming date (and bad guy Adrian Toomes’ daughter) in “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” this is brand new territory.
Also Read: Topher Grace Is Playing David Duke in Spike Lee's 'BlacKkKlansman'
“I think I passed through Cannes on a school trip when I was maybe 14,” she said with a laugh. “But I’ve definitely never been to the film festival.”
In “BlacKkKlansman,” Harrier plays a black-power activist in the early 1970s, an era that predates her birth by about 20 years. Obviously, she had some studying to do: “I only listened to music from that era,” she said, “which is stuff I love anyway. And I watched a lot of ‘Soul Train’ — I went down a ‘Soul Train’ YouTube hole.”
She modeled the character after activists of the era like Angela Davis and Kathleen Cleaver, the latter of whom she met and talked to in preparation for the role. The resulting film, she said, is “grounded in a very serious, real topic. But Spike is so good at taking these serious subjects and finding humorous moments. It’s a thriller, it’s a drama, it has lighter moments — it’s a lot of things rolled into one.”
Also Read: Spike Lee's Fact-Based 'BlacKkKlansman' Gets August Release Date
Harrier was almost in a second movie at Cannes this year, but her role as Michael B. Jordan’s wife in Ramin Bahrani’s “Fahrenheit 451” wound up on the cutting room floor.
“The character definitely has a big part in the book,” she said, “but because of the length of the film, Ramin decided they needed to change the storyline and the structure of the film. And unfortunately my character didn’t fit with the storyline. It’s something you always hope doesn’t happen, but I’m not the first it’s happened to, and I definitely won’t be the last.”
As for where she wants to go from here, the goal is simple: “When I read scripts I look for strong, interesting, fully rounded women, who are unfortunately difficult to find. I just want to keep telling meaningful stories about people who look like me.”
Read original story ‘BlacKkKlansman’ Star Laura Harrier on Going From Spider-Man’s Homecoming to Cannes Red Carpet At TheWrap...
Laura Harrier was on vacation on a beach in Greece when she got a call from an unfamiliar number. “I answered the phone and heard, ‘Laura, this is Spike Lee,'” she said with a laugh. “Whaaat??? I didn’t know Spike Lee, but he wanted me to come back to New York and audition for “BlacKkKlansman.” I had to figure out how to get off that island and fly home the next day, and I was thinking, ‘I’d better get this part.'”
She got the part after a marathon audition that found her doing improv with Lee himself. “I did not walk into it expecting to be reading with him — that was another level of intimidation,” she said. “It was my longest audition ever, and I walked out hoping that that was a good sign.”
It was, and Harrier now returns to the Mediterranean as one of the most buzzed-about actresses at the Cannes Film Festival. For a 28-year-old from Chicago whose splashiest role to date has been as Peter Parker’s homecoming date (and bad guy Adrian Toomes’ daughter) in “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” this is brand new territory.
Also Read: Topher Grace Is Playing David Duke in Spike Lee's 'BlacKkKlansman'
“I think I passed through Cannes on a school trip when I was maybe 14,” she said with a laugh. “But I’ve definitely never been to the film festival.”
In “BlacKkKlansman,” Harrier plays a black-power activist in the early 1970s, an era that predates her birth by about 20 years. Obviously, she had some studying to do: “I only listened to music from that era,” she said, “which is stuff I love anyway. And I watched a lot of ‘Soul Train’ — I went down a ‘Soul Train’ YouTube hole.”
She modeled the character after activists of the era like Angela Davis and Kathleen Cleaver, the latter of whom she met and talked to in preparation for the role. The resulting film, she said, is “grounded in a very serious, real topic. But Spike is so good at taking these serious subjects and finding humorous moments. It’s a thriller, it’s a drama, it has lighter moments — it’s a lot of things rolled into one.”
Also Read: Spike Lee's Fact-Based 'BlacKkKlansman' Gets August Release Date
Harrier was almost in a second movie at Cannes this year, but her role as Michael B. Jordan’s wife in Ramin Bahrani’s “Fahrenheit 451” wound up on the cutting room floor.
“The character definitely has a big part in the book,” she said, “but because of the length of the film, Ramin decided they needed to change the storyline and the structure of the film. And unfortunately my character didn’t fit with the storyline. It’s something you always hope doesn’t happen, but I’m not the first it’s happened to, and I definitely won’t be the last.”
As for where she wants to go from here, the goal is simple: “When I read scripts I look for strong, interesting, fully rounded women, who are unfortunately difficult to find. I just want to keep telling meaningful stories about people who look like me.”
Read original story ‘BlacKkKlansman’ Star Laura Harrier on Going From Spider-Man’s Homecoming to Cannes Red Carpet At TheWrap...
- 5/9/2018
- by Steve Pond
- The Wrap
Opening Night – World Premiere
Gone Girl
David Fincher, USA, 2014, Dcp, 150m
David Fincher’s film version of Gillian Flynn’s phenomenally successful best seller (adapted by the author) is one wild cinematic ride, a perfectly cast and intensely compressed portrait of a recession-era marriage contained within a devastating depiction of celebrity/media culture, shifting gears as smoothly as a Maserati 250F. Ben Affleck is Nick Dunne, whose wife Amy (Rosamund Pike) goes missing on the day of their fifth anniversary. Neil Patrick Harris is Amy’s old boyfriend Desi, Carrie Coon (who played Honey in Tracy Letts’s acclaimed production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) is Nick’s sister Margo, Kim Dickens (Treme, Friday Night Lights) is Detective Rhonda Boney, and Tyler Perry is Nick’s superstar lawyer Tanner Bolt. At once a grand panoramic vision of middle America, a uniquely disturbing exploration of the fault lines in a marriage,...
Gone Girl
David Fincher, USA, 2014, Dcp, 150m
David Fincher’s film version of Gillian Flynn’s phenomenally successful best seller (adapted by the author) is one wild cinematic ride, a perfectly cast and intensely compressed portrait of a recession-era marriage contained within a devastating depiction of celebrity/media culture, shifting gears as smoothly as a Maserati 250F. Ben Affleck is Nick Dunne, whose wife Amy (Rosamund Pike) goes missing on the day of their fifth anniversary. Neil Patrick Harris is Amy’s old boyfriend Desi, Carrie Coon (who played Honey in Tracy Letts’s acclaimed production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) is Nick’s sister Margo, Kim Dickens (Treme, Friday Night Lights) is Detective Rhonda Boney, and Tyler Perry is Nick’s superstar lawyer Tanner Bolt. At once a grand panoramic vision of middle America, a uniquely disturbing exploration of the fault lines in a marriage,...
- 8/20/2014
- by Notebook
- MUBI
Talk about an intriguing director(s)/subject pairing. Filmmaker, scholar, distinguished professor at New York University, and director of the Institute of Afro-American Affairs, Manthia Diawara and British-Ghanaian experimental filmmaker John Akomfrah (who I don't think needs much of an intro around here), have teamed up to co-direct a documentary on the life of Kathleen Cleaver - once member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (Sncc), and eventual Spokesperson for the Black Panther Party (the first woman on its central committee), and wife of the party's Minister Of Information, Eldridge Cleaver. The USA/Algeria/France co-production is...
- 7/12/2013
- by Tambay A. Obenson
- ShadowAndAct
Whoa! Talk about an intriguing director pairing. Filmmaker, scholar, distinguished professor at New York University, and director of the Institute of Afro-American Affairs, Manthia Diawara and British-Ghanaian experimental filmmaker John Akomfrah (who I don't think needs much of an intro around here), have teamed up to co-direct a documentary on the life of Kathleen Cleaver - once member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (Sncc), and eventual Spokesperson for the Black Panther Party (the first woman on its central committee), and wife of the party's Minister Of Information, Eldridge Cleaver. The USA/Algeria/France co-production is...
- 7/10/2012
- by Tambay A. Obenson
- ShadowAndAct
Denise Welch has alerted police after being urged to kill herself by Internet 'trolls'. The 'Loose Women' star tearfully announced her split from husband Tim Healy on Monday's show and has since had her twitter page flooded with 'vile' messages. A twitter user named Ally Money, wrote: 'Hope Denise slits her wrists, disgusting w***e,' before calling her 'a drunk s**g'. One called Caven 5 said: 'Denise Welch blubbing on TV over her marriage, well she is an actress after all, she put on a good show,' and Kathleen Cleaver tweeted: 'People telling her to keep her chin up she's in the wrong she as had affairs ... open your eyes people she is a trollop.' Denise, 53 - who chose...
- 2/8/2012
- Monsters and Critics
This fascinating documentary brings together material shot by Swedish documentarists and TV journalists dealing with the African American civil rights movement from the time of Martin Luther King's death to the fall of Nixon, accompanied by recently recorded voiceover commentaries. Among the latter are that remarkable survivor Angela Davis, the film-maker Melvin Van Peebles, Kathleen Cleaver (onetime wife of Eldridge Cleaver, author of Soul on Ice) and Harry Belafonte. Most younger viewers will require more context for both parts of the film than Olsson provides.
DocumentaryWorld cinemaRace issuesPhilip French
guardian.co.uk © 2011 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds...
DocumentaryWorld cinemaRace issuesPhilip French
guardian.co.uk © 2011 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds...
- 10/22/2011
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
With The Help in theaters dissecting 1950′s race relations in the south, another film will take a more extensive look at the issues that follow that period, in documentary form. Goran Hugo Olsson‘s The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 debuted at Sundance this year to strong reviews and now we have our first trailer. The doc features Erykah Badu, Harry Belafonte, Kathleen Cleaver, Angela Davis, John Forté, Robin Kelley, Talib Kweli, Abiodun Oyewole, Melvin Van Peebles, Sonia Sanchez, Bobby Seale, and Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson. See it below via Apple.
Synopsis:
The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 mobilizes a treasure trove of 16mm material shot by Swedish filmmakers, after languishing in a basement of a TV station for 30 years, into an irresistible mosaic of images, music, and narration chronicling the evolution one of our nation’s most indelible turning points, the Black Power movement. Featuring candid interviews with the movement’s most explosive revolutionary minds,...
Synopsis:
The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 mobilizes a treasure trove of 16mm material shot by Swedish filmmakers, after languishing in a basement of a TV station for 30 years, into an irresistible mosaic of images, music, and narration chronicling the evolution one of our nation’s most indelible turning points, the Black Power movement. Featuring candid interviews with the movement’s most explosive revolutionary minds,...
- 8/12/2011
- by jpraup@gmail.com (thefilmstage.com)
- The Film Stage
The Black Power Mixtape: 1967-1975 is a fine example of a documentary that blends the past and present, using the visual medium of film as a “mixtape” to collect images of the Black Power movement of the 1960s and 1970s while being entirely narrated from new and archived interviews with activists such as Angela Davis, Stokely Carmichael, and Kathleen Cleaver, and musicians such as Erykah Badu, Talib Kweli, and Questlove. The film’s footage was filmed by Swedish filmmakers who made documentary segments for Swedish television of the black power movement, and chronicling how a cycle of poverty, structural racism, and the need for equality using intellectual thought was pertinent during these years. These issues were spearheaded by the Black Panthers who, contrary to popular belief, were not advocating for violence but for education and reform in the black community. The film was directed by Göran Hugo Olsson, who had...
- 4/6/2011
- IONCINEMA.com
Chicago – Nominated right alongside buzzed-about features such as “Get Low” and “Tiny Furniture” in the Best First Feature category at this year’s Indie Spirit Awards is “Night Catches Us,” the impressive yet entirely overlooked filmmaking debut of writer/producer/director Tanya Hamilton. The film breaks no new ground artistically, but its historical backdrop has rarely been explored in cinema.
Welcome to Philadelphia, 1976. The rumblings of revolution during the 1960s have faded into the distance, but their remnants are scattered all over the volatile neighborhood occupied by Patricia (Kerry Washington). She’s a single mom resigned to shutting out the past while still remaining entrapped by it. Patricia’s caginess causes her ever-curious daughter, Iris (Jamara Griffin), to resort to drastic measures, literally ripping apart the wallpaper in an effort to unearth her family’s blood-stained secrets (this is an example of the film’s less than subtle visual metaphors...
Welcome to Philadelphia, 1976. The rumblings of revolution during the 1960s have faded into the distance, but their remnants are scattered all over the volatile neighborhood occupied by Patricia (Kerry Washington). She’s a single mom resigned to shutting out the past while still remaining entrapped by it. Patricia’s caginess causes her ever-curious daughter, Iris (Jamara Griffin), to resort to drastic measures, literally ripping apart the wallpaper in an effort to unearth her family’s blood-stained secrets (this is an example of the film’s less than subtle visual metaphors...
- 2/10/2011
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
[Premiere Screening: Friday, Jan. 21, 9:00 pm -- Holiday Village Cinema IV]
To me the biggest surprise in making The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 was meeting one of my subjects: Angela Davis. I had admired her for so many years from seeing her on TV and her biography. The footage that we assembled in the film is something that no one outside of Swedish television had seen before. While watching those segments from years ago, I was moved by her interviews and the way she spoke so directly and with knowledge and a subtlety that was so powerful. Then, when I actually met her, I was blown away completely. I felt kind of chastened presuming she was solely this ultraserious scholar, only to find out she was a humorous, witty and very warm person. It was great.
Further, this same feeling of surprise resonated with all the other persons I had interviewed for the film. As a documentary filmmaker, you aren’t...
To me the biggest surprise in making The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 was meeting one of my subjects: Angela Davis. I had admired her for so many years from seeing her on TV and her biography. The footage that we assembled in the film is something that no one outside of Swedish television had seen before. While watching those segments from years ago, I was moved by her interviews and the way she spoke so directly and with knowledge and a subtlety that was so powerful. Then, when I actually met her, I was blown away completely. I felt kind of chastened presuming she was solely this ultraserious scholar, only to find out she was a humorous, witty and very warm person. It was great.
Further, this same feeling of surprise resonated with all the other persons I had interviewed for the film. As a documentary filmmaker, you aren’t...
- 1/19/2011
- by Filmmaker Staff
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Chicago – In the 1970s, there was a period in history when the civil rights movement began to splinter and disintegrate. Government infiltration, internal divisions and lack of direction especially hurt organizations like the Black Panthers movement, a focus of Writer/Director Tanya Hamilton’s new film, “Night Catches Us.”
In 1976, after years of absence, Marcus (Anthony Mackie of “The Hurt Locker”) returns to his Philadelphia neighborhood, where he was a member of the Black Panther movement. His reappearance arouses new suspicions regarding his sudden vanishing, his colleagues suspect he sold out a fellow Panther. The only acceptance he seems to find is from his old friend Patricia (Kerry Washington). Together, they must somehow come to terms with a past from which they can’t seem to escape.
Tanya Hamilton makes her feature film debut with Night Catches Us, several years after after winning Best Short Film at the 1996 Berlin International Film Festival for “The Killers.
In 1976, after years of absence, Marcus (Anthony Mackie of “The Hurt Locker”) returns to his Philadelphia neighborhood, where he was a member of the Black Panther movement. His reappearance arouses new suspicions regarding his sudden vanishing, his colleagues suspect he sold out a fellow Panther. The only acceptance he seems to find is from his old friend Patricia (Kerry Washington). Together, they must somehow come to terms with a past from which they can’t seem to escape.
Tanya Hamilton makes her feature film debut with Night Catches Us, several years after after winning Best Short Film at the 1996 Berlin International Film Festival for “The Killers.
- 12/8/2010
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
And we’re off…! As I said in my post announcing the Sundance 2011 lineup, I’ll be going over the complete list, highlighting titles that we already haven’t given coverage to, taking into consideration this blog’s specific interests.
The first is a documentary titled The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975, directed by Swedish filmmaker Göran Hugo Olsson, and co-produced by Danny Glover and his Louverture Films.
Its synopsis: From 1967 to 1975, Swedish journalists chronicled the Black Power movement in America. Combining that 16mm footage, undiscovered until now, with contemporary audio interviews, this film illuminates the people and culture that fueled change and brings the movement to life anew.
Included in the mix are appearances and commentary by: Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture), Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Eldridge Cleaver, Bobby Seale, Huey P. Newton, Emile de Antonio, Angela Davis, Harry Belafonte, Kathleen Cleaver, Robin Kelley, Abiodun Oyewole, Sonia Sanchez, Bobby Seale...
The first is a documentary titled The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975, directed by Swedish filmmaker Göran Hugo Olsson, and co-produced by Danny Glover and his Louverture Films.
Its synopsis: From 1967 to 1975, Swedish journalists chronicled the Black Power movement in America. Combining that 16mm footage, undiscovered until now, with contemporary audio interviews, this film illuminates the people and culture that fueled change and brings the movement to life anew.
Included in the mix are appearances and commentary by: Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture), Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Eldridge Cleaver, Bobby Seale, Huey P. Newton, Emile de Antonio, Angela Davis, Harry Belafonte, Kathleen Cleaver, Robin Kelley, Abiodun Oyewole, Sonia Sanchez, Bobby Seale...
- 12/2/2010
- by Tambay
- ShadowAndAct
A little late on this… At 6pm today, August 26, 2010, at the Walter Reade Theater, Lincoln Center (165 W. 65th St.), in New York City, the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement in conjunction with ImageNation, will host the world premiere of the film Black August: A Hip-Hop Documentary Concert, which was directed by Dream Hampton.
Featuring exclusive interviews with Assata Shakur, Kathleen Cleaver, and others, the film documents the long-standing movement to raise awareness about and support for political prisoners in the U.S.
Part concert film, the documentary also features performances by Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Common, Erykah Badu and a few others. Click Here for information on tickets.
Here’s a look at the project:...
Featuring exclusive interviews with Assata Shakur, Kathleen Cleaver, and others, the film documents the long-standing movement to raise awareness about and support for political prisoners in the U.S.
Part concert film, the documentary also features performances by Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Common, Erykah Badu and a few others. Click Here for information on tickets.
Here’s a look at the project:...
- 8/26/2010
- by Tambay
- ShadowAndAct
Also screening at Bam Cinematek (see Hey New York #1 just below this post) is a 75-minute 1969 documentary on leading member of the Black Panther Party Eldridge Cleaver, titled Eldridge Cleaver. It’s part of the BAMcinématek Contraband Cinema screening series. I like the title.
The film screens tomorrow, Wednesday, June 30 at 4:30pm, and again on Sunday, July 4, which will be followed by a Q&A with his widow, Kathleen Cleaver.
Synopsis: Under pressure from FBI’s counterintelligence program, Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver and his wife Kathleen left the United States for Algeria. There, he set up the International Section of the Black Panther Party which quickly became the hangout of revolutionaries from the Vietnamese and African liberation movements. Director Klein’s moving interview follows up with Cleaver during the Pan-African Cultural Festival in Algiers, where he expounds upon the Vietnam War and Black Power during a time when “revolution...
The film screens tomorrow, Wednesday, June 30 at 4:30pm, and again on Sunday, July 4, which will be followed by a Q&A with his widow, Kathleen Cleaver.
Synopsis: Under pressure from FBI’s counterintelligence program, Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver and his wife Kathleen left the United States for Algeria. There, he set up the International Section of the Black Panther Party which quickly became the hangout of revolutionaries from the Vietnamese and African liberation movements. Director Klein’s moving interview follows up with Cleaver during the Pan-African Cultural Festival in Algiers, where he expounds upon the Vietnam War and Black Power during a time when “revolution...
- 6/29/2010
- by Tambay
- ShadowAndAct
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