REMIX: The Black Experience in Film, Media, and Art
REMIX is a year-round series examining the legacy of institutional racism and the black experience in film, media, and art. Join us for programs that will challenge perceptions, inspire dialogue, and celebrate the richness and breadth of cinema that is too often overlooked.
This July, REMIX will honor legendary musician Quincy Jones through his work in the film industry.
Quincy Delight Jones (1933-2024) is one of the most important architects of contemporary music. A mere paragraph couldn’t begin to capture the breadth of his seven-decade career. Spanning genres and form, his impact has left an indelible mark on us all. To celebrate his life’s work, I’ve programmed a three-film program, a small sample of his body of work scoring films. The Wiz (1978), a film replete with a cameo by its music producer, The Getaway (1972) composed at the behest of Steve McQueen, and The Color Purple (1985) his greatest contribution to the landscape of film and a sneak preview into my next program. I hope you all join me in celebrating this maestro of music and his contributions to the big screen. – Tayler Montague, series curator
The Wiz
July 2, 2025
Pre-recorded introduction by Series Curator Tayler Montague
When Harlem schoolteacher Dorothy (Diana Ross) tries to save her dog from a storm, she’s miraculously whisked away to an…
The Getaway
July 11, 2025
Pre-recorded introduction by Series Curator Tayler Montague
Steve McQueen (The Great Escape) and Ali MacGraw (Love Story) are at their finest as husband-and-wife thieves on the run…
The Color Purple
July 18, 2025
Presented on 35mm—Pre-recorded introduction by Series Curator Tayler Montague
Academy Award winner Whoopi Goldberg, Danny Glover, and Oprah Winfrey star in director Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of Alice Walker’s Pulitzer…
Hale County This Morning, This Evening
Feb. 10, 2025
The Debut Film from the Director of NICKEL BOYS
An inspired and intimate portrait of a place and its people, Hale County This Morning, This Evening looks at the…
Losing Ground
July 16, 2024
On July 16, join us for a special evening to watch Losing Ground and Naked Acts plus a conversation between…
Naked Acts
July 16, 2024
Q&A with director Bridgett M. Davis moderated by Maya Cade
Celebrated as a key film in the canon of independent cinema by African-Americans in the 1990s, Bridgett M. Davis’s Naked…
Miss Juneteenth
June 19, 2024
Pre-recorded introduction by Series Curator Tayler Montague
A former beauty queen, now struggling to make ends meet as a single mom, prepares her rebellious teenage daughter for…
Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project (with Black Girls Play: The Story of Hand Games)
Dec. 13, 2023
Q&A with directors Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson moderated by REMIX Curator Tayler Montague
Presented with Black Girls Play: The Story of Hand Games (18 min.) Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project travels through…
Twice as Nice
Oct. 17, 2023
Introduction by Tayler Montague
Jessie Maple (1937-2023) was a pioneer who paved the way in many facets of the film industry. Not only the…
The Watermelon Woman (1996) with Home Movie (1973)
June 20, 2023
Join us for a special screening of The Watermelon Woman (1996) preceded by a screening of Jan Oxenberg’s seminal short…
James Baldwin Abroad: A Program of 3 Films
June 19, 2023
Special Juneteenth Celebration
In honor of Juneteenth, we are celebrating with James Baldwin Abroad, a riveting program comprised of three short documentaries—all recently…
Love to Love You, Donna Summer
May 10, 2023
Q&A with director Roger Ross Williams, moderated by Jackie Glover, most recently at Onyx Collective
Love to Love You, Donna Summer is directed by Oscar and Emmy-winning filmmaker Roger Ross Williams and Brooklyn Sudano, daughter…
Tongues Untied & Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien (No Regret)
June 19, 2022
Juneteenth Program
“My struggle has allowed me to transcend that sense of shame and stigma identified with my being a black gay…
Faya Dayi
May 31, 2022
In her hypnotic documentary feature, Ethiopian-Mexican filmmaker Jessica Beshir explores the coexistence of everyday life and its mythical undercurrents. Though…
Audre Lorde: The Berlin Years 1984 to 1992
Apr. 27, 2022
Audre Lorde: The Berlin Years 1984 to 1992 explores a little-known chapter of the writer’s prolific life, a period in…
Set It Off
Feb. 24, 2022
F. Gary Gray’s (Friday, Straight Outta Compton) mid-nineties masterpiece was often described as the “Black” Thelma & Louise upon release,…
Chameleon Street
Jan. 27, 2022
Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 1990 Sundance Film Festival—yet criminally underseen for over three decades—Chameleon Street recounts…
Eyes on the Prize
Jan. 17, 2022
Free Screening
Henry Hampton’s definitive and acclaimed documentary series chronicles the civil rights era from the point of view of the ordinary…
Dope is Death
Dec. 2, 2021
Q&A filmmaker Mia Donovan, activists Juan Cortez and Sekou Odinga, and acupuncturist Tabitha Silver moderated by Dr. Samuel Kelton Roberts
Dope is Death tells the story of how community activists developed the first acupuncture detox clinic in the United States…
Our Song
Oct. 28, 2021
Our Song is a clear-eyed, unsentimental look at three teenage girls (played by Kerry Washington, Anna Simpson, and Melissa Martinez)…
Midnight in Paris
Aug. 23, 2021
Shot in 2012—two years before the water crisis began—this charming, warmhearted film focuses on six Flint, Michigan, teenagers and their…
Amazing Grace
July 27, 2021
Crafted from never-before-seen footage originally shot in 1972, Amazing Grace documents the recording of Aretha Franklin’s seminal and acclaimed gospel…
Test Pattern
Feb. 19–Apr. 8, 2021
Test Pattern follows an interracial couple whose relationship is put to the test after a Black woman is sexually assaulted and…
The Black Power Mixtape 1967–1975
Feb. 13, 2020
A wall-to-wall immersion in “a tangy raw stew of history” (Entertainment Weekly), courtesy of an extraordinary trove of documentary footage…
Two Shorts by Madeline Anderson
Jan. 20, 2020
Q&A filmmaker Madeline Anderson via Skype
Trailblazing filmmaker Madeline Anderson, often credited with being the first black woman to produce and direct a televised documentary film,…
The Learning Tree
Nov. 14, 2019
Reel Talk with Mia Mask
50th ANNIVERSARY Celebrated photographer Gordon Parks was the first African-American to direct mainstream studio films. While he’s best known for…
Douvan Jou Ka Levé
Aug. 15, 2019
Reel Talk with journalist Michèle Montas
Based on her own experience and interweaving poetic narration with interviews, this personal documentary by Haitian filmmaker/actress Gessica Généus—the title…
Boyz n the Hood
July 18, 2019
To honor the legacy and influence of the late filmmaker John Singleton, who passed in April at 51, we’re showing…
Mother of George
June 27, 2019
Danai Gururia (AMC’s The Walking Dead, Black Panther) and veteran actor Isaach De Bankolé (Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, White…
Personal Problems
May 21, 2019
Introduction by author, activist, and professor Ishmael Reed
“Personal Problems retains a vitality and an integrity that practically bounds off the screen.” (New York Times) This entirely African…
Imitation of Life
Mar. 27, 2019
Introduction by Vassar Professor Hiram Perez
In collaboration with Vassar College’s conference “Quiet as It’s Kept: Passing Subjects, Contested Identities” and Professor Mia Mask, we present…
Shadows
Mar. 26, 2019
In collaboration with Vassar College’s conference “Quiet as It’s Kept: Passing Subjects, Contested Identities” and Professor Mia Mask, we present…
Devil in a Blue Dress
Mar. 25, 2019
Introduction by Vassar Professor Mia Mask
In collaboration with Vassar College’s conference “Quiet as It’s Kept: Passing Subjects, Contested Identities” and Professor Mia Mask, we present…
Lost Boundaries
Mar. 24, 2019
In collaboration with Vassar College’s conference “Quiet as It’s Kept: Passing Subjects, Contested Identities” and Professor Mia Mask, we present…
Chi-Town
Feb. 21, 2019
Q&A filmmaker Nick Budabin, executive producer Terry Minogue, and community leader Patrice Moore
“This is a beautifully photographed, thoroughly engrossing, sobering but also inspirational piece of work.” (Chicago Sun-Times) Chi-Town follows Keifer Sykes…
Take This Hammer
Jan. 21, 2019
In the spring of 1963, prolific author/activist James Baldwin set out to assess “the real situation of Negroes in the…
He Got Game
Aug. 16, 2018
Released 20 years ago, He Got Game stars Denzel Washington (in his third collaboration with Spike Lee) as a prison…
Jinn
July 19, 2018
Q&A filmmaker Nijla Mu’min with film writer Tayler Montague
Summer is a carefree teenager whose world is turned upside down when her mother abruptly converts to Islam. Though initially…
'63 Boycott & The Chicago Mixtape
Apr. 29, 2018
Q&A The Chicago Mixtape filmmaker Paola Piers-Torres, ‘63 Boycott producer Tracye Matthews & Professor of Media Studies and Film at The New School Michelle Materre
Please join us for an evening of short films exploring the marriage of arts, education, and activism in communities of…
The Rape of Recy Taylor
Feb. 26, 2018
Q&A filmmaker Nancy Buirski and Coordinator of Community Engagement and Education at My Sisters’ Place Kymberly McNair moderated by BAM Associate VP, Cinema Gina Duncan
On September 3, 1944, Recy Taylor, a 24-year-old black mother and sharecropper was making her way home from church when…
For Ahkeem
Feb. 8, 2018
Q&A filmmaker Landon Van Soest and Director of the ACLU Racial Justice Program Dennis Parker moderated by Creative Culture Fellow Crystal Kayiza
For Ahkeem follows the life of Daje Shelton, a seventeen-year-old black girl living in North St. Louis. After being expelled…
A Raisin in the Sun
Jan. 15, 2018
Reel Talk with Mia Mask
In honor of MLK Day, please join us for a screening of this timeless classic. Featuring star-making performances from the…
This African-American Life: An Evening with Hugh Price
June 5, 2017
Q&A JBFC Chairman Emeritus Hugh Price moderated by JBFC Board Member John Nonna
Please join us for a film screening and discussion in honor of Hugh Price’s new memoir This African-American Life. In…
Fences
Feb. 24–Mar. 2, 2017
Nominated for 4 Academy Awards!
Nominated for 4 Academy Awards, including Best Actor, Best Actress in a Supporting Role, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Picture. …
O.J.: Made in America
Feb. 20, 2017
Nominated for Academy Award—Best Documentary Feature!
O.J.: Made in America is a riveting 8 hour Oscar–nominated documentary that revisits the trial of the century. Drawing upon…
Losing Ground
Jan. 16, 2017
Reel Talk with Ja’Tovia Gary
Kathleen Collins’s funny, brilliant, and personal Losing Ground should have ranked high in the canon of indie cinema, but the film was…
Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise
Sep. 22, 2016
Special Preview Screening
When Maya Angelou died in 2014, President Obama said that the prolific and visionary singer, dancer, activist, poet, and writer…
She's Gotta Have It
Aug. 1, 2016
30th Anniversary Screening!
The release of She’s Gotta Have It heralded a new era in independent cinema and formally introduced the world to Spike…
The Hard Stop
July 18, 2016
“A riot is the language of the unheard.” (Martin Luther King, Jr.) A wave of riots broke out across England…
When We Were Kings
July 17, 2016
“I don’t have to be who you want me to be; I’m free to be who I want.” (Muhammad Ali) Charismatic,…
Burning an Illusion
June 27, 2016
In 1981, minority communities across England took to the streets to protest police brutality, institutional racism, and unemployment. Burning an…
The Black Calhouns
Mar. 2, 2016
Film: Cabin in the Sky
In her new book, The Black Calhouns, Gail Lumet Buckley—daughter of performer and activist Lena Horne—delves deep into her family…
The Defiant Ones
Feb. 10, 2016
Starring Sidney Poitier and Tony Curtis
“I was spawned during the Roosevelt era, a time of great change. I still believe in getting people to think,…
What's Motivating Hayes?
Jan. 31, 2016
“[Jonathan] Demme does something special in his mini-doc…he shows us who Hayes is, independent of the Syngenta scandal. What it…
Buck and the Preacher
Jan. 28, 2016
Starring Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte
“After playing Hollywood’s first black Western hero in Duel at Diablo (1966), Sidney Poitier blazed new trails when he took over the…
King: A Filmed Record... Montgomery to Memphis
Jan. 18, 2016
Martin Luther King Day Celebration
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Jacob Burns Center present a special Martin Luther King Day…
Second Coming
Dec. 16, 2015
Starring Idris Elba
A touching family drama set in present day London, Second Coming is the story of Jackie (Nadine Marshall), a mother…
Sustainable Soul Food
Oct. 18, 2015
Fried chicken, fatback, collard greens, and pigs feet— when we think of soul food, we think of comfort, family, and…
The Black Panthers: Vanguard Of The Revolution
Oct. 15, 2015
The Black Panthers: Vanguard Of The Revolution
Change was coming to America and the fault lines could no longer be ignored — cities were burning, Vietnam was…
In My Father's House
Oct. 7, 2015
Set against the crumbling landscape of Chicago’s south side, this documentary film captures a yearlong journey from homelessness and alcoholism…
This series is presented with generous support from:
