Afro-American cinema will be celebrated at Cinematheque Passion between June 7 and June 20, with a programme entitled "Black is Beautiful", which includes ten works, classics and recent films by African-American filmmakers. The festival opens with a party featuring rapper Matt Force and DJ Fotan Laikei from Hong Kong. The program includes a talk titled "'This Scene Is Mine! – Because Black Art Matters”.
Matt Force, originally from Hong Kong, counts among his influences Nas, Mobb Deep and Nujabes, uses Cantonese to express himself and is described as a “cerebral rapper with an ear for the poetic and melancholic”. On June 7, at 9 pm at Cinematheque Passion, the rapper is expected to present a set from his latest album alongside Fotan Laiki, who became a featured DJ playing at Sónar Hong Kong in 2018. Fotan Laiki, also known as Wong Laiki, was born and raised in Hong Kong, took the name of Fo Tan, former industrial zone located in the New Territories.
The film programme includes two of Spike Lee's masterpieces, "Do the Right Thing", 1989, screening at 7 pm on June 7, and the 2018 Cannes Film Festival Grand Prix winner, "BlacKkKlansman", which opens the festival at 4 pm on 7 June. The first film portrays the tension between white and black people during a heatwave in Brooklyn, and has several times been listed as one of the best films of all time, while "BlacKkKlansman" tells the true story of the black police officer Ron Stallworth, who infiltrated in the Ku Klux Klan.
Charles Burnett is a referenced filmmaker of the movement "L.A. Rebellion", a term used to describe the school of emerging black filmmakers in Los Angeles, or "UCLA Rebellion" of the 1970s. The movement includes the generation of young African-American and African-American filmmakers who studied at the film school of the University of California, in Los Angeles (UCLA), developing a voice of their own and applying a humanist approach in their works. Burnett's film, "Killer of Sheep", "is a commentary on the hard life of a ghetto worker, but with the texture of a documentary" according to a statement by Cinematheque.
"Daughters of the Dust" by Julie Dash accompanies the Gullah community, descendant of slaves from West Africa, on their journey to protect their culture and heritage.
In the section Afro-Futurism, two works are presented, "An Oversimplification of Her Beauty", by Terence Nance, which combines animation and documentary. "Sorry to Bother You," by Boots Riley, better known as lead singer of hip-hop group The Coup, won a Sundance Vanguard Award in 2018. It depicts an employee of a 'call center', climbing the professional career ladder using a 'white voice'.
Following are "Chameleon Street" by Wendell Harris, and "Losing Ground" by Kathleen Collins. The first revisits the real story of the master swindler Douglas Street. The second film is an intimate look at marriage, art and the sexual genre.
Also noteworthy are Barry Jenkins's "If Beale Street Could Talk" and "Fruitvale Station," the latter, written and directed by Ryan Coogler, won the Sundance Jury Grand Prize in 2013. The first film is based on the novel by James Baldwin, and tells the story of two lovers faced with injustice. The second one shows the last hours of a young black man shot dead by a police officer.
Francisco Io, curator of the festival, and Derek lam, a professor at the University of Hong Kong, address African-American cinema on June 15 at 4:30 pm in a talk entitled: "This Scene Is Mine! – Because Black Art Matters”.
Admission is free, although subject to prior booking.
