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While the Oscars are blasted for being whiter than an Irish wedding in winter, the Portland Black Film Festival makes a welcome return to the Hollywood Theatre this week. It's also nice counterprogramming to the pastiness of the Portland International Film Fest.
Offering up the chance for Portland's predominantly white cinematic community to get a taste of black cinema history, this festival is different from similar ones in other cities: It's a ton of fun. But it doesn't lose its punch.
Kicking off with Sidney Poitier's 1972 Western starring Harry Belafonte, Buck and the Preacher, the two-week whirlwind of a festival has everything. That includes blaxploitation legend Fred Williamson at a screening of the seminal Black Caesar, and the long-lost Santa Fe Satan, a rock opera starring the late Richie Havens and based on Othello.
There's the requisite high-art documentary, about ballerina Misty Copeland; Re-Run Theater's Rap City, a retrospective on hip-hop; and the surreal prison-boxing classic Penitentary. One thing you won't see is an ounce of pretentiousness.
That's intentional, according to founding organizer David Walker. A former Willamette Week movies editor, he gave up the reins to the fest last year to focus his attention on another traditionally whitewashed medium: comic books.
Walker, an expert on black cinema (particularly blaxploitation), wants to stoke conversation about black film without soapboxing.
"This is Portland, Oregon. This is one of those cities where Straight Outta Compton did really well, but it did really well with white audiences," says Walker.
"Trying to get more obscure art films, it's like—who are we trying to sell them to? Who's going to come to this? That's one of the reasons we're trying to make this as fun as possible."
The Black Film Festival is poised to use extremely entertaining films as a syllabus to get folks interested. Take, for example, the documentary Spirits of Rebellion, a film that focuses on the origins of the "L.A. Rebellion," when UCLA launched an initiative to foster young black voices. In an era when independent film was on the rise but minorities were still left in the dark, the movement launched such auteurs as Charles Burnett, Julie Dash, Ben Caldwell and Jamaa Fanaka—the filmmaker behind Penitentiary. The film is a history lesson disguised as a compelling narrative, loaded with archival clips of adventurous, often bizarro, art that emerged from the movement.
"A lot of it is a jumping-off point for things we can talk about," says Walker. "Nobody talks about [the L.A. Rebellion] the way they talk about the Harlem Renaissance, but it was crucial in terms of how the black experience was depicted in cinema."
No bones about it—the Portland Black Film Festival isn't here to change the world, especially in a Portland that's as white as the Oscars. But it's also far from the token black friend of cinemagoers.
It's a conversation-starter, and a chance to view black cinema through an atypical lens, one in which Harry Belafonte is a gunslinger and Richie Havens is Shakespearean.
SEE IT: The Portland Black Film Festival is at the Hollywood Theatre, 4122 NE Sandy Blvd., hollywoodtheatre.org. Feb. 10-27. $8.
Also Showing:
The Joy Cinema's tribute to Eurotrash werewolf hero Paul Naschy lives on with the craptacular Curse of the Evil. Joy Cinema. 9 pm Wednesday, Feb. 10.
Church of Film continues its Art Theatre Guild series with the psychedelic Japanese new-wave art flick Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets. North Star Ballroom. 8 pm Wednesday, Feb. 10.
One of the most staggeringly anti-commercial movies ever commercially made, it seems strange that Fight Club's permanent place has been in the form of dorm-room posters and not in Portland's repertory rotation. See it on the big screen, where the spliced in dongs are meant to be seen in all their subversive glory. Laurelhurst Theater. Friday-Thursday, Feb. 12-18.
The perfect counterprogramming for Cupid's big day, Derek Cianfrance's 2010 gut-grinder Blue Valentine follows the relationship of Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling's blue-collar couple from its fiery birth to its brutal death. It's one of the best-acted films of the decade, and also one of the most emotionally draining. Maybe don't go with a date. 5th Avenue Cinema. 7 & 9:30 pm Friday-Saturday, 3 pm Sunday, Feb. 12-13.
Septuagenarian screen legend Margaret O'Brien is scheduled to attend a screening of her classic 1944 MGM musical Meet me in St. Louis, a film that netted her the outstanding child actress Oscar back when that was a thing. Hollywood Theatre. 2 pm Saturday, Feb. 13.
Last week, the Clinton sparked up a bit of Facebook controversy when it announced a screening of The Silence of the Lambs, with some commenters lamenting the film's transphobic overtones. Theater owner Lani Jo Leigh plans to precede screenings of the classic thriller with a statement about the (probably over-reactionary, but still valid) arguing the screening caused online. Let's just hope PETA doesn't get wind and protest the film's treatment of poor Precious, too. Clinton Street Theater. 7 pm Saturday-Sunday, Feb. 13-14.
The Clinton presents a remastered cut of The American Dreamer, a lost documentary following Dennis Hopper at the peak of his fame, basking in the success of Easy Rider and struggling to get his follow-up, The Last Movie, on screens. Clinton Street Theater. 7 pm Monday & Wednesday, 9 pm Tuesday, Feb. 15-17.
Willamette Week