BLACK IS, BLACK AIN’T //// FRANTZ FANON: BLACK SKIN, WHITE MASK

BLACK IS, BLACK AIN’T
• A documentary produced and directed by Marlon Riggs
• Co-directed and edited by Christiane Badgley
• USA, California Newsreel, 1995, color, DVD, 87 min.
• Appearances by Angela Davis, bell hooks, Cornel West, Essex Hemphill, Bill T. Jones, and Barbara Smith

Unafraid of controversy, the late African-American poet/filmmaker Marlon Riggs fearlessly approached the explosive subject of “Black identity” with this 1995 documentary, his final film. He asks a number of cultural leaders the difficult question, “What is Black?,” and receives a wide array of answers, as is befitting of the diverse attitudes, situations, backgrounds, aspirations, accomplishments, and experiences of African-Americans. Feeling that some definitions of “Blackness” were too rigid, Riggs traveled the country to point out a “rich gumbo” of “Black folks young and old, rich and poor, rural and urban, gay and straight, grappling with the paradox of numerous, often contested definitions of Blackness.” This probing film “marshals a powerful critique of sexism, patriarchy, homophobia, colorism and cultural nationalism in the Black family, church and other Black institutions.” (California Newsreel)

FRANTZ FANON: BLACK SKIN, WHITE MASK
• Written and directed by Isaac Julien
• Co-written by Mark Nash
• UK, California Newsreel, 1996, color, 35mm, 70 min.

“FRANTZ FANON: BLACK SKIN, WHITE MASK explores for the first time on film the pre-eminent theorist of the anti-colonial movements of this century. Fanon's two major works, Black Skin, White Masks and The Wretched of the Earth, were pioneering studies of the psychological impact of racism on both colonized and colonizer. Jean-Paul Sartre recognized Fanon as the figure "through whose voice the Third World finds and speaks for itself." This innovative film biography restores Fanon to his rightful place at the center of contemporary discussions around post-colonial identity. Isaac Julien, the celebrated black British director of such provocative films as LOOKING FOR LANGSTON and YOUNG SOUL REBELS, integrates the facts of Fanon's brief but remarkably eventful life with his long and tortuous inner journey. Julien elegantly weaves together interviews with family members and friends, documentary footage, readings from Fanon's work and dramatizations of crucial moments in Fanon's life.” (California Newsreel)