Movies

Faubourg Treme: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans

Black Harvest International Festival of Film and Video

This festival of work by black artists from around the world continues Friday through Thursday, August 22 through 28, at the Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State. Tickets are $9, $5 for Film Center members; for more information call 312-846-2800. Following are selected programs; a complete schedule is available at siskelfilmcenter.com.

Faubourg Treme: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans With a magisterial sweep, this stirring video by New Orleans native Dawn Logsdon documents the prominence of African-Americans in the Big Easy from colonial times to the present. Treme—today, the Sixth Ward—was integrated from its inception as an 18th-century suburb, becoming home to a large number of former slaves who had bought their freedom. These early citizens pursued their educations and started businesses prior to the Civil War, and their descendants were the earliest proponents of the civil rights movement. Writer and codirector Lolis Eric Elie, columnist for the Times-Picayune, gives a guided tour of the ward, and the extensive footage shot before Hurricane Katrina underlines the region’s loss. 68 min. (AG) Logsdon, Elie, and producer Lucie Faulknor will attend both screenings. Sat 8/23 and Mon 8/25, 6:15 PM.

A Good Day to Be Black & Sexy A red-hot date movie, this loose series of vignettes astutely surveys the various emotional obstacles lovers endure and sometimes overcome. In the first story, the mundane situation of a partner happy to get but not give head is rendered almost surreal through claustrophobic close-ups; in the second, a daytime tryst for a married man and his jealous mistress turns venomous. Two segments on a teenager losing her virginity are tender, sad, and more authentic than most coming-of-age movies, and in the final segment, writer-director Dennis Dortch proves his versatility with a lighthearted comedy about a Chinese woman feigning obedience to her tradition-minded parents while her black boyfriend hides upstairs. 92 min. (AG) Dortch will attend the Saturday screening.  Sat 8/23 and Wed 8/27, 8:30 PM.

The Gilded Six Bits Gary, Indiana, filmmaker Mark Spencer adapted this digital feature (2006, 66 min.) from Zora Neale Hurston’s classic story about a Depression-era bride (Erynn Mackenzie) who betrays her husband (Ansa Akyea) for a few gold coins. Given the video’s microbudget of $20,000, this is fairly impressive: the camera work is frequently inventive, the farmlands outside Gary pass for the story’s Florida setting, and Spencer coaxes good supporting turns from his large cast of unknowns. But Mackenzie, primarily a stage actress, is too mannered, and few of the costumes look authentic. (AG) Also on the program: Dante James’s 19-minute The Doll (2007). Spencer and James will attend both screenings. Sun 8/24, 5 PM, and Wed 8/27, 6:15 PM.

Heart of Fire Luigi Forlani (The Story of the Weeping Camel) freely adapts Senait Mahari’s best-selling memoir for this moving tale of innocence lost. In 1981, during Eritrea’s war of independence from Ethiopia, a ten-year-old girl (Letekidan Micael) is suddenly reclaimed from a Catholic orphanage in Asmara by her older sister (Solomie Micael), transported to their father’s rebel base in the Eritrean hinterlands, and dispatched with her sister to train as a child soldier against militant defectors from their group. The film benefits greatly from the unstudied performances of its young actresses. In Tigrinya and Italian with subtitles. 94 min. (AG) Fri 8/22 and Tue 8/26, 6:15 PM.

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