Film Forum

A festival of classics from the short-lived early ‘70s genre, with movies by Black filmmakers including Ossie Davis, Gordon Parks, Gordon Parks Jr., Gilbert Moses and Van Peebles and an exciting array of iconic new movie stars including Pam Grier, Richard Roundtree, Ron O’Neal, Tamara Dobson, Jim Brown, Vonetta McGee, Fred Williamson, Isaac Hayes, and others.

“Blaxploitation, Baby!” is dedicated to author and pioneering film historian Donald Bogle, collaborator on Film Forum’s first Blaxploitation festival (and the world’s first) in 1995.

“Melvin Van Peebles' SWEET SWEETBACK'S BAADASSSSS SONG set the stage for a new type of Black American cinema and a new Black hero: tough, assertive, rebellious — in an open declaration of war on pushers, turncoats, and especially The Man. Eagerly embraced by a young Black audience, but reviled by the older generation, the post-SWEETBACK Black action pictures made a fast buck for their often white producers, but in their wake brought a gritty social realism to Hollywood's Pop landscape; offered work to Black writers, directors and producers; and explosively touched on a previously-ignored need for empowered heroes and heroines.” – Donald Bogle

Black Caesars and Foxy Cleopatras: A History of Blaxploitation (Abrams), a new book by critic and historian Odie Henderson, will be available for sale at our concession during the festival. 

Donald Bogle’s acclaimed TCM book Hollywood Black, a lavishly illustrated overview of African American movie history, will also be available for sale. 

Reviews

"Radically altered the representation of Black Americans in cinema...Black people wore fashion that was as colorful as their personalities, had Afros as large as their ambitions, and grasped sexual, political and economic freedom... The genre’s treasures can be witnessed at Film Forum...(including) under-the-radar gems that add greater context, depth and variety."
– Robert Daniels, The New York Times
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Films in this Series