Film Forum

(1920, Oscar Micheaux) “Centered on Eve Mason (Iris Hall), a light-skinned young black woman from Selma, Alabama, who inherits her late grandfather’s property in the northwest. There, she meets a neighbor, Hugh Van Allen (Walker Thompson), a darker-skinned black man who falls in love with her but, taking her for white, doesn’t dare to declare his affection. The story parallels Micheaux’s own romantic misfortune—his undeclared love for a white woman—but the filmmaker builds the underlying theme of racial conflict into a political conflagration that reflects the monstrous violence of the day.” – Richard Brody, The New Yorker. With Lawrence Chenault. 35mm print courtesy MoMA. Approx. 54 min.