SFMOMA and SFFILM Present Modern Cinema – Black Powers: Reframing Hollywood

If you live in or near the San Francisco Bay Area this month is going to be a real cinephiles dream.

Modern Cinema, with the help of SFMOMA and SFFILM, will be presenting Black Powers: Reframing Hollywood July 12–29 with seminal works of black cinema including Cheryl Dunye’s The Watermelon Woman, Leslie Harris’s Just Another Girl on the I.R.T. and Theodore Witcher’s Love Jones. All three directors will also introduce their films.

Modern Cinema is an ongoing film series exploring the dynamic forces interacting between cinema’s past and present. All screenings will take place at the Phyllis Wattis Theater.

For tickets and information visit sffilm.org. Through July 11, SFFILM and SFMOMA members get get access to a special early-bird price of just $5 per ticket.

Here is the list of special guests and films this season.

• Paul D. Miller (DJ Spooky) will introduce Body and Soul on July 12
• Ryanaustin Dennis, founding member of The Black Aesthetic in Oakland, will introduce Chameleon Street on July 13, and Ganja and Hess on July 27
• Director Theodore Witcher will introduce his film Love Jones on July 15
• Performer Honey Mahogany will introduce Mahogany on July 19
• Director Cheryl Dunye will introduce her film The Watermelon Woman on July 20
• Performer, writer, and musician Brontez Purnell will introduce House Party on July 20
• Director Leslie Harris, will introduce her film Just Another Girl on the I.R.T. on July 21
• Director Michael Schultz will introduce his films Car Wash on July 21, and Krush Groove on July 22 (plus, following Krush Groove, Schultz will be in conversation with DJ Spooky)
• Filmmaker Peter Nicks will introduce Fruitvale Station on July 26
• Filmmaker Mohammad Gorjestani will introduce Middle of Nowhere on July 28
• Cornelius Moore, co-director of the distribution and projection company California Newsreel, will introduce Love & Basketball on July 29

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.

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