1 hr 58 min
Black Is Not a Genre: Rom-Coms Black is Not a Genre
-
- TV & Film
Black Is Not A Genre is a film series highlighting the under-examined and under-appreciated contributions of black cinema to genre film. The title is a play on the paradoxical existence of black cinema. The acknowledgment of shared aesthetic and cultural languages across the Black film diaspora is integral to a deeper understanding of its value. However, the persistent marginalization of Black art and racist assumptions about marketability have pigeonholed the Black films into a commercial monolith, a commercially artificial "genre" that makes a spectacle of their Blackness and ignores the specificity of their craftsmanship. As a result, Black films are only discussed in relation to other Black-made films and are excluded from essential, canonical discussions about genre that fundamentally shape the way we view what’s good, what’s good, what holds value.
In collaboration with Hyperreal Film Club, with the goal of illuminating new perspectives on Black genre filmmaking, the first edition of BINAG will recommend four Black-directed films for viewers to screen at home over the course of four weeks in July 2020. The emphasis will be on under-exposed films, films that have been largely miscategorized and warrant re-contextualizing, and films that have made major cinematic contributions to their genre. Each film will be accompanied by a weekly podcast in which series programmer Graham Cumberbatch will discuss the week’s movie and genre with a different featured guest.
For Week 3 of Black Is Not A Genre, we explore "rom-coms." We’ll be viewing Stella Meghie’s The Weekend (1997) together and discussing the genre of rom-coms to include Black culture’s essential contribution.
Our special guests are:
Dominic Jones
Dominic is a Visual Artist & Performer currently based in Texas. She attended Columbia University in NYC, where she received a Bachelor of Arts in Film Studies. Her video work has premiered at Austin Music Video Fest; Babes Fest, Austin; Helmuth Projects, California; and Studiolo in Switzerland. She's also published video work and film reviews for online publications such as i-D VICE Germany, Afropunk, Noisey, Dallas Observer, D Magazine, and FACT Mag.
Jazmyne Moreno
Jazmyne is an Oklahoma-bred, Austin-based Film programmer and grant writer and host of the Lates series at Austin Film Society
Tyler English-Beckwith
Tyler is a playwright, filmmaker, and actress originally from Dallas Texas and currently based in Brooklyn, NY. She is the recipient of the 2020 Leah Ryan Fund for Emerging Women Writers, and the recipient of the 2018 Kennedy Center Paula Vogel Play Prize. Tyler is also a member of the 2020 Page 73 writers group Interstate 73. Her plays include: Mingus (2020 Bay Area Playwrights Festival, 2019 Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s National Play Conference Finalist), Maya and Rivers (2020 Fire This Time Festival), Bitch (Development: Page 73’s Interstate 73, Joust Theatre Company), and TWENTYEIGHT (The Vortex, Austin, TX). The series of original films Tyler wrote, co-directed, and acted in titled “Umbra” can be seen on meowwolf.com. Her screenwriting work can also be heard on the upcoming scripted podcast, “Daughters of DC”. Tyler holds an MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU Tisch, and a BA in African and African Diaspora Studies from UT Austin. Tyler hopes to create worlds, in her writing, where black women live beyond the basic means of survival and have the audacity to be autonomous.
For Graham's full essay on B*A*P*S and the Camp genre visit: https://hyperrealfilm.club/reviews/binag-the-weekend
Black Is Not A Genre is a film series highlighting the under-examined and under-appreciated contributions of black cinema to genre film. The title is a play on the paradoxical existence of black cinema. The acknowledgment of shared aesthetic and cultural languages across the Black film diaspora is integral to a deeper understanding of its value. However, the persistent marginalization of Black art and racist assumptions about marketability have pigeonholed the Black films into a commercial monolith, a commercially artificial "genre" that makes a spectacle of their Blackness and ignores the specificity of their craftsmanship. As a result, Black films are only discussed in relation to other Black-made films and are excluded from essential, canonical discussions about genre that fundamentally shape the way we view what’s good, what’s good, what holds value.
In collaboration with Hyperreal Film Club, with the goal of illuminating new perspectives on Black genre filmmaking, the first edition of BINAG will recommend four Black-directed films for viewers to screen at home over the course of four weeks in July 2020. The emphasis will be on under-exposed films, films that have been largely miscategorized and warrant re-contextualizing, and films that have made major cinematic contributions to their genre. Each film will be accompanied by a weekly podcast in which series programmer Graham Cumberbatch will discuss the week’s movie and genre with a different featured guest.
For Week 3 of Black Is Not A Genre, we explore "rom-coms." We’ll be viewing Stella Meghie’s The Weekend (1997) together and discussing the genre of rom-coms to include Black culture’s essential contribution.
Our special guests are:
Dominic Jones
Dominic is a Visual Artist & Performer currently based in Texas. She attended Columbia University in NYC, where she received a Bachelor of Arts in Film Studies. Her video work has premiered at Austin Music Video Fest; Babes Fest, Austin; Helmuth Projects, California; and Studiolo in Switzerland. She's also published video work and film reviews for online publications such as i-D VICE Germany, Afropunk, Noisey, Dallas Observer, D Magazine, and FACT Mag.
Jazmyne Moreno
Jazmyne is an Oklahoma-bred, Austin-based Film programmer and grant writer and host of the Lates series at Austin Film Society
Tyler English-Beckwith
Tyler is a playwright, filmmaker, and actress originally from Dallas Texas and currently based in Brooklyn, NY. She is the recipient of the 2020 Leah Ryan Fund for Emerging Women Writers, and the recipient of the 2018 Kennedy Center Paula Vogel Play Prize. Tyler is also a member of the 2020 Page 73 writers group Interstate 73. Her plays include: Mingus (2020 Bay Area Playwrights Festival, 2019 Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s National Play Conference Finalist), Maya and Rivers (2020 Fire This Time Festival), Bitch (Development: Page 73’s Interstate 73, Joust Theatre Company), and TWENTYEIGHT (The Vortex, Austin, TX). The series of original films Tyler wrote, co-directed, and acted in titled “Umbra” can be seen on meowwolf.com. Her screenwriting work can also be heard on the upcoming scripted podcast, “Daughters of DC”. Tyler holds an MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU Tisch, and a BA in African and African Diaspora Studies from UT Austin. Tyler hopes to create worlds, in her writing, where black women live beyond the basic means of survival and have the audacity to be autonomous.
For Graham's full essay on B*A*P*S and the Camp genre visit: https://hyperrealfilm.club/reviews/binag-the-weekend
1 hr 58 min