Tag Archives: film

Today we feature the radical work of Muriel Rukeyser, whose poetics treatise, The Life of Poetry, first published in 1949, can be called an anti-Fascist manifesto. We struggle at times to place Rukeyser inside our understanding of politics and poetry as she herself struggled to not be placed – like Thoreau, she did not wish to be regarded as a …

758 new cases of COVID-19 were reported in Indiana on Monday, according to the Indiana State Department of Health. There were 20 reported deaths. Locally, Monroe County saw 151 new confirmed cases yesterday, nearly 20% of Indiana’s new cases. Lawrence County reported 2 new cases, while Brown County reported none. The Bloomington Academy of Film and Theatre, or BAFT, will …

Our opening song is “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing” – and its history alone illustrates the difficulties of centering anything black in this white capitalist country. We’re listening to Hank Crawford and Jimmy McGriff’s version off of their 1987 album, Steppin’ Up. Dubbed in 1919 by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the NAACP, as the “Negro …

Barbara Hammer has been making films for over 40 years but it is highly unlikely that you’ve ever seen them and are now asking “Who”? Born in 1939 in Hollywood, California, a kind of cosmic irony, Barbara Hammer is an American feminist filmmaker known for being one of the pioneers of lesbian film. Hammer is known for creating experimental films …

We open with music composed by Sol Kaplan for the film Salt of the Earth. Kaplan was blacklisted in the 1950s for being “uncooperative” to HUAC, the House Un-American Activities Committee. The rest of our music will feature the work of other blacklisted artists and performers; Hazel Scott, Yip Harburg, Marc Blitzstein, and Lena Horne. Salt of the Earth is …

On February 20, Refugee Studies doctoral student Lydia Lahey presented her paper on “the refugee settlement process in the Midwest through the analysis of the humanitarian practices by nongovernmental organizations and community organizations.” Specifically, she focused on the experience of Laila, an Iraqi refugee in Indianapolis. But that is just the first half hour. On January 23, Jorgensen Guest Filmmaker …

We’re joined by James Naremore to discuss the cinema of Charles Burnett, who’s been called the nation’s least-known great filmmaker and the country’s most important African-American director. His major works, such as Killer of Sheep, To Sleep with Anger, The Glass Shield, and Nat Turner: A Troublesome Property explore history’s effect on the structure of family. In films about working-class …

Our show tonight features two well-known Cuban artists: contemporary novelist, Leonardo Padura, whose fictional detective Mario Conde has been introduced to an even wider audience now through the Netflix miniseries Four Seasons in Havana. As it was shot on location it gives viewers a feel for what our guest Anke Birkenmaier terms the “actually existing Havana”; and Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, …

A better title for this show might be “Screening Women,” suggested by tonight’s guest, Janet Bergstrom, in an essay on Akerman for Sight and Sound. Or perhaps we might call it “Look what I’ve done with your name” a response by Akerman to her father’s disappointment that she had no children. This comes directly from Akerman during an interview conducted …