Jamaa Fanaka
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Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, the Films of Jamaa Fanaka and Personal Problems: Jim Hemphill’s Weekend Blu-ray Picks
One of the most formally and politically groundbreaking movies of the early 1970s, Melvin Van Peebles’ 1971 trailblazer Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, is now available on Blu-ray from specialty label Vinegar Syndrome, a company doing more to preserve the heritage of America’s outlaw independent films than any other. Sweetback is one of the more historically significant titles in the company’s catalogue, a picture so influential that its innovations are probably less readily apparent to contemporary audiences than they should be — though the propulsive energy and stylistic audacity that drive the movie still set it apart from its many imitators. […]
by Jim Hemphill on Jun 29, 2018 -
Remembering Jamaa Fanaka
Jamaa Fanaka, the eclectic and kind-hearted film director, the most commercially minded of the Los Angeles School of Black Filmmakers and perhaps the most prolific student filmmaker of all time (all three of the features he made as a grad student found distribution), died one year ago today. Although word leaked out about his death a short time after he passed away, likely from complications of diabetes, I am ashamed to admit that I didn’t hear of it until several weeks later, when his obituary finally appeared in the New York Times. Ashamed because in the intervening year since I […]
by Brandon Harris on Apr 1, 2013
