Conversations at the Edge: Current Schedule

Filmmakers Ben Caldwell, Barbara McCullough, and O.Funmilayo Makarah in person

From the early 1970s through the late 1980s, a group of young African and African American filmmakers emerged from UCLA's School of Theater, Film and Television with a body of provocative and visionary works that would have a radical impact on black cinematic practice and alternative filmmaking in the U.S. Now referred to as the L.A. Rebellion, these artists took up urgent social and cultural dynamics of their time, including Black activism and militancy, everyday life, and spirituality to forge a cinema responsive to the lives and concerns of African American communities and the African diaspora. Introduced by co-curator Jacqueline Stewart, the program kicks off a multi-institutional series of screenings in Chicago exploring the L.A. Rebellion and features short films by Julie Dash, O. Funmilayo Makarah, Elyseo J. Taylor, including stunning new preservation prints of Ben Caldwell's I & I: An African Allegory (1979) and Barbara McCullough's seminal Water Ritual #1: An Urban Rite of Purification (1979).

1973–2006, USA, multiple formats, ca. 77 min + discussion

Ben Caldwell, Barbara McCullough, O.Funmilayo Makarah, and Jacqueline Stewart will be present for discussion at the Thursday, March 28 program only.

Presented in association with the UCLA Film & Television Archive and supported in part by grants from the Getty Foundation and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. The series is curated by Allyson Nadia Field, Jan-Christopher Horak, Shannon Kelley, and Jacqueline Stewart. Upcoming screenings will take place at the University of Chicago's
Film Studies Center and Northwestern University's Block Cinema.