News from the Black Film Center/Archive

In a 2011 article, Jacqueline Stewart proposed a challenging new avenue for this area of study by identifying unmined evidentiary value in what "we can learn from the singularity of each print . . . and what any existing print might teach us about the circulation, exhibition, and content of movies in this under-documented film culture. [...]how might this representation of film as object offer a conceptual bridge for integrating audiovisual media within a wider network of related visual and textual documentation? "For the study of early African American cinema," writes project advisor Stewart, "this exploration of the use of digital technologies to capture-rather than obscure-material details from surviving film prints will be an extraordinary boon, allowing scholars to perform closer analyses that take into account physical traces on these rare artifacts"3 The conference will be held on Friday, November 15, at the Indiana University Cinema; the workshop will be held on Saturday, November 16, at the Black Film Center/Archive. In June, the BFC/A received a generous grant from the Indiana University Women's Philanthropy Council in support of the Fall 2013 program, A Call to Action: Ava DuVernay and AFFRM, a showcase for the narrative and documentary work of this trailblazing filmmaker and entrepreneur, and her recently-launched distribution venture, the African-American Film Festival Releasing Movement (AFFRM). New Donations Professor, journalist, novelist, and filmmaker Bridgett Davis donated the 35mm picture and sound elements for her independent film production Naked Acts (1998), along with an extensive collection of related documentation, including the shooting script, production notes, journal entries, press kits, and other material related to the film's production and exhibition.