Please join us at FilmScene this fall for a monthly screening and discussion series, Out of the Archive: Envisioning Blackness. A continuation of conversations begun last spring in the inaugural Out of the Archive program, the series showcases the vibrant, multifaceted tradition of Black cinema by presenting rarely screened and/or recently restored films. Tickets are pay-what-you-can (with students, in particular, encouraged to pick $0). Join us before each screening for a free dinner reception catered by local restaurants, and stay after each film for post-screening conversations with UI community members and, whenever possible, the filmmakers themselves. Dinner receptions start at 6:15 p.m., with all screenings following at 7 p.m.
The fifth event in the 2023-24 series features a special screening of Sara Gómez's De cierta manera (One Way or Another) (1977). Please join us at 6:30 p.m. for a dinner reception provided by Sugapeach (https://www.sugapeach.com/). Following the 7 p.m. screening, American Studies PhD student Uchechi Anomnachi will be in conversation with UI faculty members Tisa Bryant, Kathleen Newman and Elizabeth Rodriguez Fielder. Please invite friends and colleagues; all are welcome!
De cierta manera (One Way or Another) (1977): The only feature from the radical Afro-Cuban filmmaker Sara Gómez—who also worked as an assistant director with Agnès Varda and Tomás Gutiérrez Alea before her untimely death at age 31—is an extraordinary portrait of post-revolution Cuba. Blending invaluable documentary footage with a loose narrative about the budding relationship between an outspoken schoolteacher (Yolanda Cuellar) and a young worker (Mario Balmaseda) facing a moral crisis, One Way or Another depicts revolution as an ongoing process that takes place at the level of community—among friends, lovers, coworkers, teachers, students, and parents, all of whom must work together to negotiate a new social order. Above all, Gómez offers a trenchant intersectional critique of the lingering sexism and machismo that, she argues, must be cleared away in order to create a truly just society.
Reserve your tickets today at https://icfilmscene.org/.
Out of the Archive is presented by the African Diaspora Committee and is made possible through generous support from the following University of Iowa departments and units: the African American Studies Program, the Black Visual Culture Group, the Center for Human Rights, the Department of Anthropology, the Department of Cinematic Arts, the Department of Communication Studies, the Department of Dance, the Department of English, the Department of History, the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, the College of Education, the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, the School of Library and Information Science, the School of Music, the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies, and the Department of Gender, Women's, and Sexuality Studies.