March 6th and 13th | 7 movies
Black women independent filmmakers worked on the fringes of an industry that wasn’t yet ready to embrace them. Frustrated by a lack of representation, these filmmakers took the matter into their own hands to create authentic portrayals of the Black woman’s experience. Their stories tackled themes of self-love, societal beauty standards, the mother-daughter bond, work inequality and gender roles in romantic relationships. Many of these films languished in obscurity for years, but a recent resurgence of interest has put them back in the spotlight where they belong.
This month, TCM celebrates the work of seven Black women independent filmmakers with co-host Maya Cade, the creator and curator of BlackFilmArchive.com and scholar-in-residence at the Library of Congress.
Madeline Anderson
Driven by the need to make films that Black audiences could relate to, Madeline Anderson became one of the earliest Black documentarians. Her films were utilitarian in nature—using the form to educate rather than entertain. Professor Michael T. Martin breaks down Anderson’s body of work into three major themes: social purpose, prioritizing the voices of the marginalized and resolving the myth that the Black community cannot resolve their own affairs. Her work focused primarily on civil rights, racism, inequality, working Black women and school children.
Anderson’s 28-minute short documentary I Am Somebody (1970) chronicles the 1969 worker’s strike in which over 400 Black female hospital workers protested to demand a wage increase and recognition by the union. The documentary includes footage of key figures, including Coretta Scott King, Andrew Young and Ralph Abernathy speaking to the Drug, Hospital, and Health Care Employees Local 1199 union. In her artist statement for the “Signs Journal,” Anderson said “I identified with them as a Black working woman… Our obstacles were the same, those of gender, racial discrimination, and politics… [I Am Somebody] is a film made by a Black woman for and about Black women.”
Anderson was a pioneer in the world of public television working on children’s programming like “The Electric Company” and “Sesame Street” and becoming the first Black woman to direct a televised documentary. Anderson’s notable works include two documentaries on the Civil Rights Movement: Integration Report 1 (1960) and A Tribute to Malcolm X (1967).
Carolyn Y. Johnson
Carol Y. Johnson’s sole contribution to film history is A Dream is What You Wake Up From (1978), a docudrama she co-directed with Larry Bullard. Inspired by the work of Cuban documentarian Sara Gómez and Mozambican activist Josina Machel, Johnson set out to explore the dynamics of Black families in America in a way that shed light on the everyday injustices they faced. The film is comprised of a series of vignettes—mostly set in the modern day but including a dramatization that takes place during the Restoration era—in which men and women discuss their roles in society and in the home. It includes a mix of professional and non-professional actors, and Johnson herself narrates her original poem “A Necklace of Tears,” a tribute to her slave ancestors.
By tackling the subject matter through various angles—interviews, dramatizations of peer-to-peer conversations and day-in-the-life style documentary—Johnson provides the viewer with a mosaic of perspectives. On the film, Maya Cade of the Black Film Archive wrote, “It delicately balances a mix of narrative and documentary techniques to showcase how gendered violence keeps Black women behind in their pursuit for the American dream.”
Alile Sharon Larkin
In her debut feature film A Different Image (1982), Alile Sharon Larkin dismantles Western beauty standards to reveal a moving portrait on Black beauty. This coming-of-age story stars Margòt Saxton-Federella as Alana, a young woman whose sense of self-worth comes in direct conflict with her friend Vincent (Adisa Anderson) who espouses a patriarchal mindset and attempts to take their relationship from platonic to romantic.
Larkin received her MFA in Motion Picture and Television Studies and is a member of the L.A. Rebellion, a generation of Black independent filmmakers who studied at UCLA. Larkin primarily works as an educator, however, her film A Different Image is a significant contribution to the Black feminist discourse. Larkin wrote, “Black women filmmakers bring forth new dimensions in dealing with the issues of sexism, because they deal with the totality of our experience…we actively create new definitions of ourselves within every genre, redefining damaging stereotypes.”
Larkin was inspired by Ralph Ellison’s novel “Invisible Man,” which explores race and identity and is referenced directly in A Different Image. The film includes cinematography by fellow L.A. Rebellion filmmaker Charles Burnett and a sequel called A Different Image: Coda is in production.
Kathleen Collins
In recent years there has been a resurgence of interest in the work of Kathleen Collins, a professor, poet, activist and filmmaker whose life was cut short at the age of 46. While Collins only lived long enough to direct two films, one of them, Losing Ground (1982), has been widely recognized as an outstanding achievement. Written, co-produced and directed by Collins, Losing Ground stars Seret Scott as Sara, an attractive yet very reserved academic whose marriage to artist Victor (Bill Gunn) is beginning to fray at the seams. The two take a short vacation to reconnect but only find themselves drifting further apart. Sara is drawn away by one of her students who casts her in his student film about a vaudeville couple during the silent film era.
Losing Ground is one of the first feature-length films directed by a Black woman, and it pre-dates “The Cosby Show” in its depiction of a prosperous middle-class Black family. The film received attention on the festival circuit and was screened on PBS’ “American Playhouse” but never had a proper theatrical release.
Collins was an accomplished academic with various degrees who went on to teach screenwriting and film history at the City College of New York. Collins felt that her filmmaking was an extension of her teaching. She took to the form to tell stories about Black characters as fully developed individuals rather than as subjects of racism.
After Collins died in 1988, her film work was mostly forgotten. Her daughter Nina Collins has been instrumental in reintroducing her mother’s work to the public. In 2020, Losing Ground was selected to be part of the National Film Registry for being “culturally, historically, or esthetically important.”
Zeinabu irene Davis
As one of the youngest members of the L.A. Rebellion, Zeinabu irene Davis offers an unconventional approach to filmmaking that contributes to the larger discourse on the Black experience. After working extensively in short films, Davis advanced to the feature-length format with A Powerful Thang (1991). Barbara O stars as Yasmine, a single mom and free-spirit who wishes to end her self-imposed celibacy with her saxophone-playing boyfriend Craig (John Earl Jelks). He is hesitant because he believes that “sex is a powerful thang… [people] fall in love with the bodies before they really get to know each other.”
Produced by Davis’ company Wimmin With a Mission and funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, A Powerful Thang takes an innovative approach to exploring intimacy and gender roles. It includes Haitian African dance sequences, stop animation and a meta sequence that breaks the fourth wall acknowledging the film currently in production.
Davis holds multiple degrees in African Studies and film and video production and is a professor at the University of California San Diego. She’s best known for her feature film Compensation (1999), a story about a deaf woman’s courtship with a hearing man told in two different timelines.
Ayoka Chenzira
Ayoka Chenzira’s Alma’s Rainbow (1994) languished in obscurity for years but in recent times has been championed as “a rediscovered treasure of independent cinema” according to Criterion. Victoria Gabrielle Platt stars as Rainbow Gold, the teenage daughter of Brooklyn beauty salon owner Alma (Kim Weston-Moran). Her single mother maintains a strict sense of decorum which is thrown off-kilter when her eccentric sister Ruby (Mizan Kirby) comes to visit. Chenzira explores the film’s subject matter through the multicolor lens of Rainbow Gold’s experience, offering viewers a coming-of-age story that celebrates creativity through dance, performance and a colorful array of 1990s-era costumes.
The journey to make Alma’s Rainbow started as far back as 1984, when Chenzira was accepted into the Directors Lab at Sundance. Chenzira sought out funding and distributors for her project but faced pushback. She lamented that “since Rainbow’s concerns were about boys, being seen by her mother, and valuing herself as a young Black woman, the film was dismissed. Instead, Hollywood favored grittier male-dominated stories like John Singleton’s Boyz n the Hood (1991) and the Hughes Brothers’ Menace II Society (1993).” Alma’s Rainbow finally got a proper theatrical release almost 30 years after it was made and earned a spot on Slate’s “New Black Film Cannon.”
Bridgett M. Davis
Bridgett M. Davis may have only ever directed one feature film but the one she did packs a wallop. Naked Acts (1996) stars Jake-Ann Jones as Cicely, a young actress and the daughter of Blaxploitation star Lydia Love (Patricia DeArcy). Her past trauma and drastic weight loss give her a sense of self-consciousness that puts her at odds with a film director who wants her to appear naked in the production’s final scene. The story follows Cicely’s journey to come to terms with making herself vulnerable both emotionally and physically.
Davis—a long-time educator and writer—became interested in filmmaking after taking a screenwriting course at New York University and she went on to learn about film production at a local media arts center. According to Yanick Rice Lamb of “The New York Times,” Naked Acts grew out of [Davis’s] regular request that students keep journals or write about their early experiences.” Davis was astonished by the stories of abuse, and this provided the inspiration for her protagonist Cicely. Davis was also inspired by the work of another academic-turned-filmmaker, the aforementioned Kathleen Collins.
Even though Naked Acts had a successful four-week run at the Thalia Theater due to an effective word-of-mouth campaign, it struggled to find distribution. In 2024, Davis’ under-appreciated gem experienced a revival with theatrical and festival runs, repertory screenings, a restoration and a Blu-ray release.
