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Two Souls at the Acapulco Black Film Festival
by Esther Iverem
SeeingBlack.com Editor and Film Critic
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ACAPULCO, Mexico—If the Acapulco Black Film Festival ever
decides to re-name itself, it might try the Two Souls Black Film
Festival. For nothing better than W.E.B. Du Bois' famous description
of the African American condition—"two warring ideals in one"—better
sums up the state of the Black film community on the fifth anniversary
of this gathering.
On one hand, many Black filmmakers want the wide distribution and
big-bucks promotion that Hollywood studios can provide. At a panel
titled "Black Hollywood 2000," established directors like John Singleton,
Gina Prince-Bythewood and Reginald Hudlin told an often fawning
audience how they have made it. (Even if "making it" for Hudlin
means directing the likes of Ladies Man.)
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Coca-Cola
Film Score Competition winner
Malcolm Rector (center), with Isaac Hayes (left) and Coca
Cola's Caroleen Robinson.
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On the other hand, with such studio deals few and far in between—no
major studios show up here, for example, to shop for films they
way they do at Cannes or Sundance—the movement is continuing
to build for an alternative distribution network to handle independent
Black films that never make it to your theater. The big news this
year is the formation by Jeff Friday, co-founder of this festival,
of Film Life, which will provide theatrical distribution for independent
Black films. Film Life's first release on October 5 will be last
year's big film festival winner, the powerful drama, One
Week, directed by Carl Seaton.
"We want to release classic films—the way Cooley High
was a classic," says Friday. "We know there is a market for these
films. When the studios are ready to do a 'Black film,' they're
looking for the widest audience possible. They don't know our culture."
Last year, Friday kicked off BlackFilmFestAmerica, a fledgling
tour of Black independent films that visited a few cities but suffered
from poor promotion. He said that Film Life will invest $1 million
to promote One Week and, taking a cue from music promoters,
will use Black radio and street promotion to get the word out.
Films in the Hood
As for the movies, let's just say that the 'hood film is back with
a vengeance. In addition to providing a sneak peek at John Singleton's
upcoming Baby Boy, the festival offered three films in its
U.S. competition—Blue Hill Avenue,
Lockdown and Lift—that
dealt to varying degrees with crime, drugs, violence and murder.
Blue Hill Avenue, which had its world premiere here and chronicles
the rise of a group of drug dealers in Boston, won the audience
award over the other two, and also won over A
Huey P. Newton Story, starring Roger Guenveur Smith and
directed by Spike Lee.
Love Come Down, while
not exactly ghetto but dealing with drugs, race and family conflict,
was inexplicably voted by the audience as best International film
over Raoul Peck's powerful epic Lumumba.
A story about the consequences of crime, Jacked, was considered
the best work-in-progress over three others, including Voice
of the Voiceless, Tania Cuevas-Martinez's worthy documentary
about death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal. Saving the day and, as far
as I'm concerned, saving the reputation of the festival, was the
selection by attending filmmakers of Lumumba as best film.
Something else: Lumumba and Huey P. Newton
Lumumba is one of two festival films being widely distributed
to the general public this month. It is a powerful and important
film that seeks, with some difficulty, to tell the heinous story
behind the rise and execution of Patrice Lumumba, the freedom fighter
and first leader of newly independent country of Zaire. The documented
complexity of what happened in the Congo—including chaos among
the country's soldiers, intervention by the U.S. Central Intelligence
Agency and the presence of more than 400 foreign correspondents—means
that it is challenging to tell an all-encompassing story in two
hours. Complete books have been written, for example, focusing on
solely the United States' role or the experience of the men who
ultimately cut up and burned Lumumba's corpse.
Featuring a brilliant performance by Eriq Ebouaney, the film-in
wide release on June 27—makes important contribution to understanding
what Lumumba saw and experienced in his short tenure as leader before
his murder. While the film's finale is its strength, its beginning
is its weakness. There is no narrative—not even a flashback—about
Lumumba's formative years. We are given no clue about the influences-familial,
social or educational-that shaped him into an important thinker
about African independence. There is another gap in explanation
when Lumumba arrives in the capital as a postal employee, winds
up selling beer and then makes the seemingly sudden transformation
into a political leader.
Finally, while depicting the heat of political combat, it seems
as though it was easier for Peck to dramatize the brutality toward
Whites by the country's Black soldiers than it was to dramatize
the cumulative effects of colonialism on the Congolese people, or
the plotting and scheming by Whites against the young nation and
leader. Despite such flaws, Lumumba is the must-see Black film of
2001.
Also, premiering June 18 on Black Starz and also showing on PBS
and the African American Heritage Network is A Huey P. Newton
Story, starring Roger Guenveur Smith and directed by Spike Lee.
In Smith's veteran and imaginative hands, Newton—the Panther's
minister of defense—is drawn in warm relief. There is no beret,
or rounds of ammunition slung over his shoulder. He is dressed simply
in a black shirt, pants and shoes, sitting in a chair on an otherwise
bare stage. The set represents the Oakland high-rise apartment where
Newton lived in the later years of his life. It is from this position
that he ruminates on his life, all the while nervously bouncing
his right leg and chain-smoking Kools.
Smith uses humor and references to current events to make Newton
just a regular guy with a few physical ticks and dependencies. He
becomes a Black Panther around-the-way brother, the youngest of
seven children, the one who was a slow learner, the one who hated
to be teased with chants of "Baby Huey."
This production has evolved considerably since its beginning in
1996. Now Newton refers to the 1997 murder of the Notorious B.I.G
and calls the Oval Office the "Oral Office." Both comments are references
to events that occurred well after Newton's 1989 shooting death
on an Oakland street, after an alleged drug-related altercation.
This version of Smith's performance downplays the original play's
emphasis on Newton as a drug user. The result, you could say, is
a more "positive" portrayal of Newton but "positive" isn't really
the right word. Here is a painful and complex humanity.
Historic footage and photographs break up the visual monotony of
the bare set, though they cannot fully save it from its slow moments.
It is almost inevitable, despite Smith's significant acting feat,
that the minimal action will be cause for squirming—especially
when viewed on a small screen. Thankfully, the challenge of filming
one man sitting does not overwhelm the power or substance of this
important interpretation of 60's history.
DuBois would be proud.
Read complete reviews of films at the festival for:
-- June 21, 2001
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2001-05 Seeing Black, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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