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By AP KRYZA
"This is the end of your rotten life, you motherfuckin' dope pusher!" Those are the immortal words of Ms. Pamela Grier in the 1973 blaxploitation classic Coffy. Spoiler alert: Things go poorly for the motherfuckin' dope pusher. For two weeks in Portland, those words will be presented alongside the elegant prose of Maya Angelou.
The Portland Black Film Festival returns for a fifth year at the Hollywood Theatre as racial tension is at a nationwide boiling point. It runs concurrently with the Portland International Film Festival, for which it once served as much-needed counterprogramming to PIFF's international whiteness. Although this year's PIFF is more diverse, opening with Raoul Peck's searing James Baldwin treatment, I Am Not Your Negro (PBFF screens the film as well), it nonetheless keeps an outward focus. That leaves tons of room for PBFF to do the right thing by focusing on the still woefully underrepresented African-American experience.
RELATED: Portland's Black Film Fest seeks to undo the whitewashing.
It also precedes the Oscars, which nominated a record number of black artists in major categories, though even former frontrunner Moonlight is going to have a hard time beating the whitewashed jazz fantasy La La Land. It's a glorious time for black cinema, but as ever, it's relegated to the shadows of the mainstream.
Any festival that puts race in its title evokes "super-important" films about super-important topics. But what's always made the Black Film Festival such a delight is curator (and former WW film editor) David Walker's tendency to blend the serious with the seriously badass. As such, this year we have social documentaries balanced out by a criminally underseen Prince concert film, a dose of Soul Train, and an appearance by blaxploitation goddess Grier in the flesh.
RELATED: Women dominate the Portland Black Film Fest.
That kind of programming is, like Coffy's trademark shotgun, double-barreled. It serves to at once educate, enlighten and, above all, entertain. What's emerged is one of Portland's most thoughtfully curated fests. Here's your guide to the first week of the PBFF.
With her halter top, puffy Afro and huge gun, Pam Grier established her legacy in Jack Hill's pulpy, grimy-as-fuck tale of a lone nurse going death wish on drug dealers. She cemented her icon status in exploitation films like Foxy Brown before a late-career resurgence in Jackie Brown, to say nothing of her appearance in Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey. Grier's presence at the Coffy screenings assured that they sold out immediately. Pray that they release more. 2 and 7 pm Saturday, Feb. 11.
When Prince died last year, Purple Rain screened on repeat at Portland theaters for a month (thankfully, Graffiti Bridge was left untouched). Conspicuously absent was this Purple One-directed concert film from 1987. The Sheila E. drum solo halfway through the film is alone more purifying to the soul than the waters of Lake Minnetonka. 7:30 pm Monday, Feb. 13.
Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise (2016)
We've all read Angelou's work, but seeing her life in archival photos and footage really puts the life of a woman whose work led her to speak alongside Malcolm X, Bill Clinton and those suffering in the civil rights era in a whole new light. Kleenex highly recommended. 7:30 pm Thursday, Feb. 9.
Not to be confused with Spike Lee's weird-ass Da Sweet Blood of Jesus, this restored Spencer Williams cult classic "race film" is an ethereal, gospel- and blues-driven struggle between a slain Baptist woman and the devil at the crossroads. For history buffs and film nerds, it's a must-see look at black film in the age of studio dominance. It plays with shorts Darktown Revue (1931) and Hot Biskits (1931) as part of the Pioneers of African American Cinema series. 7 pm Sunday, Feb. 12.
SEE IT: The Portland Black Film Festival begins at the Hollywood Theatre on Thursday, Feb. 9. Visit hollywoodtheatre.org for a full schedule.