Black History Meets Film History

Varied, Carefully-Curated Series of Films Make Up the “Juneteenth Cinematic Celebration” at Santa Barbara’s Riviera Theatre

'Do the Right Thing' | Photo: Courtesy

Juneteenth, like Black History Month but in a humbler and more compact fashion, serves to direct due attention to the struggles, triumphs and vital cultural lifeblood of Black life in the American saga. That complex and ongoing subject can be vast and elusive, challenging an easy grasp of its evolving dimensions. One available mode of access is through the prism of Black cinema, a growing and ever more important avenue in the history of film.

From June 13 through 19, the Santa Barbara International Film Festival is doing its part to honor the holiday and cause for reflection with a “Juneteenth Cinematic Celebration.” Over the course of six diverse films from the past fifty years, this carefully-curated sampling manages to be a short but instructive survey not only in Black American experience going back to the slavery era, but a choice overview of the range of films under the Black cinema umbrella.

Unquestionably, the best-known title of the series is Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing (1989), Lee’s edgy but humane study of racial tensions in Bed-Stuy and one of the director’s masterful films. If that film embodied a new, Scorsese-ish approach to the violence long brewing in blaxploitation and other cinema about modern urban Black life, the sweet young love (and basketball) tale Love & Basketball goes strongly against type — and typecasting. Lee serves as an executive producer on Gina Prince-Bythewood’s 2000 film, which may suffer from some cine-sentimentality and sports film cliches but inspires with its refreshingly affectionate and de-sensationalized view of Black life.

The oldest film of the series is also a jewel of early DIY indie film culture, Charles Burnett’s rough-hewn but powerful Killer of Sheep, made in Watts on a shoestring in 1978, during the blaxploitation heyday. The story of a slaughterhouse worker and conflicts with his environment, socio-racial issues and family is a tale told in artful terms.

‘Daughters of the Dust’ | Photo: Courtesy

Cinematic poetry of a hypnotic and sometimes raw sort can also be found in Daughters of the Dust (1991), writer-director Julie Dash’s sometimes dream-like account of women in the historical and geographic nether-zone of the South Carolina Gullah Islands in 1902. The film earned a spot in the lofty, once-a-decade Sight and Sound list of greatest films of all time, in 2022.

Another flavor of cinematic poetry, tinged by Southern Gothic airs and mystical elements, lends distinction to Kasi Lemmons’ 1997 film Eve’s Bayou. The film oscillates between the gritty reality of a womanizing patriarch juxtaposed with metaphysical turns into the spirit world, with women more in control than surface social values would care to admit.

I Am Not Your Negro, Raoul Peck’s stunningly fine 2017 chronicle of the life of the late, great James Baldwin, is the sole documentary in the Riviera series and a powerhouse in terms of its commanding and creative filmmaking alongside its insightful portrait of Baldwin’s life, words, and activist spirit. In an in-house connection, Peck’s unique doc was one of the strongest and most buzzed-about films of the 2018 Santa Barbara International Film Festival, and well worth a repeat visit.

In all, the “Juneteenth Cinematic Celebration” promises to bring into timely focus the importance and rich tapestry of Black life and Black film in America.

For showtimes and more information see sbifftheatres.com/juneteenth.