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The spring F.I.L.M. (Forum on Image and Language in Motion) series will present Charles Burnett’s Killer of Sheep (1977) on Sunday, Feb. 21. All F.I.L.M. series events are on Sunday afternoons at 2 p.m. in the Bradford Auditorium in the Kirner-Johnson Building and are free and open to the public. The theme of the spring series is “In Focus: African-Americans in Film: Rarely Screened Landmarks.”

Among the most accomplished films to come out of the “LA Rebellion,” a two-decade flowering of African-American filmmaking in Los Angeles, Killer of Sheep is a glimpse at the life of a family in Watts, shot in neorealist style on a shoestring. Because Burnett could not afford the rights to the music used in the film, it did not have a theatrical release for nearly 30 years.

Killer of Sheep was chosen by the National Society of Film Critics as one of the 100 Essential Films of all time. The National Film Registry selected it for preservation in 1990.

Coming up in the spring F.I.L.M. series:

Sunday, Feb. 28: Losing Ground (1982), directed by Kathleen Collins; starring Seret Scott, Bill Gunn and Duane Jones.
Sunday, March 6:  Film Scholar Jacqueline Stewart will explore the career of pioneer filmmaker Spencer Williams.
Sunday, April 10:  Alfred Guzzetti presents old and new work.
Sunday, April 17:  Erin Espelie with The Lanthanide Series (2014)
Sunday, April 24:  “Music and Cinema” presented by F.I.L.M. director Scott MacDonald

 

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