Film Forum

Michael Roemer’s narrative feature debut, NOTHING BUT A MAN (1964), starring Ivan Dixon, Abbey Lincoln, and Yaphet Kotto, earned a standing ovation at the New York Film Festival. It went on to win three awards at the Venice Film Festival, but failed to find a U.S. distributor. It had limited visibility in the United States until it was re-released in 1993. After its re-release, The Washington Post called it "one of the most sensitive films about Black life ever made in this country." Added to the National Film Registry in 1993, it’s now championed as a daring portrait of Black life during the height of the Civil Rights Movement and "a timeless masterpiece" (Melissa Lyde). Roemer's follow-up, THE PLOT AGAINST HARRY (1969), also failed to find a distributor and sat on the shelf for twenty years, until it finally opened, to widespread critical acclaim, at the New York Film Festival. Roemer was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1971, and has published two books, Telling Stories and Shocked But Connected: Notes on Laughter, as well as two volumes of his screenplays.

Brooke Adams began acting at age 6 in her father’s summer theater in Michigan. She has appeared on screen in dozens of films, including Terrence Malick’s DAYS OF HEAVEN, Philip Kaufman’s INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, Allison Anders’ GAS FOOD LODGING, David Cronenberg’s THE DEAD ZONE, as well as MADE-UP (2002), directed by her husband Tony Shalhoub, and written by her sister Lynn Adams. Ms. Adams’ numerous stage appearances include the The Heidi Chronicles on Broadway and The Cherry Orchard at the Atlantic Theater Co. 

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