1910 - The Railroad
Porter, This short comedy was directed by W illiam Foster
in Chicago and financedby Henry Abbott Sengstacke of the
Chicago Defender Newspaper. This is recorded as the first
independent African American film.
1915-
George and Noble
Johnson open the Lincoln
Motion Picture Company to produce Black films in Los Angeles.
1918 - The
Homesteader , debut film of the prolific pioneer director producer,
Oscar Micheaux . Film was financed by fellow farmers, black
an d white in the North Dakota area where Micheaux lived as a homesteader
and began to write books. Established the Micheaux Book and Film
Company in Chicago. Micheaux decided to produce the film himself
after refusing an offer by the Johnson Brothers to purchase the
screenplay. Anxious to direct , though he had no experience, the
resourceful Micheaux wanted creative control over his works....thus
was born one of the most productive filmmakers of the early 20th
Century.
1919-Within
Our Gates , by Oscar
Micheaux , a film on race relations and lynching shot during
the "Red Summer" of America's horrendous race riots. The
film was censored and eventually suppressed. Sold abroad it was
thought lost but turned up in the Spanish Film archives and was
identified by noted film historian Thomas Cripps .
1924-Body
and Soul , a classic silent drama by Oscar Micheaux
which starred Paul Robeson in his debut acting appearance.
Circa-1925 -
Zora Neale Hurston begins research with a 16mm camera to
record the folk life and traditions of the Black South thus becoming
one of the first Black women documentary filmmakers.
1931-The Exile
, the first African American sound feature produced by Oscar Micheaux
1935 -Murder
in Harlem
1936 -Underworld
1939 -
1941- Blood of Jesus, by Spencer
Williams becomes the most successful Black directed film
of this era.
1944- Go Down Death
1948- Souls of Sin
1948- The Betrayal is Micheaux's last film. He retires
with over 50 films to his credit.
1951-Native Son is filmed in Argentina and stars author
Richard Wright as Bigger Thomas.
1952-1958 In this period Hollywood appropriated and controlled
the images of African America and restricted the content to musical
comedy and social pathologies. Films like Intruder in the Dust,
1951 by Claude Brown is one of the most important of films
made by Hollywood which sought to depart from the
traditional stereotypes prevalent in American cinema.
1959 - The
Cry of Jazz , by
Edward O. Bland is the thought to be the only
independent work by an African American in the 1950s. The film was
declared "the first anti-white film " in the Fall, 1959
edition of Film Quarterly.
1969
- Story
of a Three Day Pass (La Permission) produced and directed
in France by writer/director Melvin
Van Peeble . After his failure to obtain training in the
U.S. Van Peebles chose to become an expatriate and worked in Holland
and France as a writer. The Film was the French entry to the 1970
San Francisco Film Festival .
1970- First Black Independent Film Festival in New York curated
by Pearl Bowser at the Jewish Museum.
SYMBIOPSYCHOTAXIPLASM , experimental feature film produced
and directed by former actor/ William
Greaves (Souls of Sin, 1949)
1971- Locked out of the Hollywood system Melvin
Van Peeble responds with the independent production of Sweet
Sweetback's BaddddAsssss Song and takes America by storm in
the tradition of Oscar Micheaux self-promoting the film from city
to city. The success of his efforts were adopted by the Hollywood
system and thus began the Black Action (Blaxploitation) period of
the 1970s.
1976- Joan Cohen curated the first retrospective
of Black films at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Premiered
on the West Coast were St. Clair Bourne's LET THE CHURCH SAY
AMEN, and Leroy McDonald's TUSKEGEE STUDY 646.The prgram
also included BLACK SHADOWS ON THE SILVER SCREEN, as well
as SCAR OF SHAME and Paul Robeson's THE EMPEROR JONES
1979- First Conference of African American Filmmakers convened
by the Black Filmmakers foundation. Attended by Spike Lee,
Julie Dash, Robert Gardner, Charles Lane, Barbara McCullough, Reggie
Hudlin, St. Clair Bourne, Ronald Gray, Terrie Williams(of the Terri
Williams Agency), Ayoka Chenzira, Alile Sharon Larkin, Randy Abbott,
Doug Harris, Seck Ngaydo Ba(from Senegal) and many others.
1979-Charles
Burnett wins award at the Berlin film Festival for The
Horse
1979 -African American Cinema showcased at Festival des
3 Continents, Nante, France.
1980 - Julie Dash and Barbara McCullough
present the works of new independent filmmakers at the 1980 Cannes
Film Festival at a special screening.
1980 - FNAC , October Retrospective of Independent
Black American Cinema, Paris at Forum Des Halles. Curated and Organized
by Catherine Ruell
1981- Black American Film Festival takes place in Holland in
Spring and travels to six cities throughout the North.
Black Independent Cinema, USA Festival takes place in Chicago
Black on Black Film Series Tours organized by the late Richard
Gaugert of the St. Louis Art Museum.
1982-Black Film
Festival in London at Commonwealth Institute and National Film Theater.
Organized by Parminda Vir
1982- Whitney
Museum, The Black Woman Independent: Representing Race and Gender.
Exhibition of films by African American Women Filmmakkers. Curated
by Valarie Smith. To be continued..........
1982-
1983- BLACKLIGHT Festival of International Black Cinema
begins with assistance of Richard Pena at Film Center of the Art
Institute and Chicago Filmmakers.
1984- Spike Lee wins Student Academy Award for Joe's Bed-Stuy
Barbershop
1985- Spike Lee's
She's Gotta Have It picked up for theatrical release by the
then new Island Pictures.
1986- Whitney
Museum, The LA Rebellion: A Turning Point in Black Cinema organized
by Clyde Taylor. Examined the beginnings of an AfricanAmerican cinematic
vocabulary in the films of Charles Burnett, Ben Caldwell, Larry
Clark, Julie Dash, Haile Gerima, Alile Sharon Larkin and Barbara
McCullough.
1987-
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