Slideshow
BLACK WOMEN
Trailblazing African American Actresses & Images, 1920 – 2001
Through Thursday, February 13
“BLACK WOMEN shines a light on the sometimes under-appreciated African American female figures of cinema: the actresses, the roles, the images, the personas – historical milestones and indelible landmarks. Built in is an awareness of the decades-long struggles of Black actresses to find significant work – and of sometimes not so much playing roles as playing against their roles to come up with insightful, illuminating, even subversive performances that can still excite us today.” – Donald Bogle, the leading authority on African American images in American movies.
The festival includes Oscar-nominated and Oscar-winning performances by Black women, beginning with Hattie McDaniel, who in 1939 became both the first Oscar-nominated and Oscar-winning African American actress, for her supporting role in Gone with the Wind, and Dorothy Dandridge, who in 1954 was the first African American actress ever nominated for the Best Actress Oscar for her riveting performance in Otto Preminger’s Carmen Jones. Other Oscar nominees and/or winners highlighted in the series includes Cicely Tyson, Ethel Waters, Diana Ross, Angela Bassett, Diahann Carroll, Oprah Winfrey, Juanita Moore, Whoopi Goldberg (Winner, Best Supporting Actress for Ghost (1990)), and Halle Berry (first African American actress to win Best Actress for Monster’s Ball).
Also featuring silent screen African American actresses, including Evelyn Preer in Within Our Gates and Iris Hall in The Symbol of the Unconquered, both directed by the pioneering Oscar Micheaux; following through with the arrival of Hollywood’s first Black love goddess, Nina Mae McKinney in King Vidor’s early 1929 talkie Hallelujah; and moving forward with the heartfelt performances of Louise Beavers and Fredi Washington in the fascinating original 1934 Imitation of Life; Josephine Baker in the French films Zou Zou and Princess Tam Tam; to performances by such notable stars as Lena Horne, Ruby Dee, Eartha Kitt, Rosalinda Cash, Diana Sands, Abbey Lincoln, Gloria Foster, Vonetta McGee, Alfre Woodard, Lonette McKee, Lynn Whitfield, Janet Jackson, Tyra Ferrell, Queen Latifah, the gritty, supremely assertive Pam Grier, Tamara Dobson, and goddess of the 1990s Whitney Houston.
Presented with generous support from the Nancy Sidewater Foundation and from Fred Wistow.
Films in this Series
