In this edgy, angsty, romantic first feature from director Melvin Van Peebles (Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song), Turner (Harry Baird), an African American soldier stationed in France, is granted a promotion and a three-day leave from base by his casually racist commanding officer. Turner heads to Paris, where he enters a whirlwind romance with a white woman (Nicole Berger)—but what happens to their love when his furlough is over?
Channeling the brash exuberance of the French New Wave, Van Peebles creates an exploration of the psychology of an interracial relationship as well as a commentary on France’s contradictory attitudes about race that is playful, sarcastic, and stingingly subversive by turns.
Following the screening, Ashley Clark will sign copies of his new book The World of Black Film, available for purchase courtesy of The Village Bookstore.
