Documentary Voices 2021

September 1–November 10, 2021

This fall our ongoing series Documentary Voices returns to BAMPFA’s Barbro Osher Theater with a selection of classic and contemporary nonfiction films that bring history to light in a variety of engaging and inventive ways.

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  • Still from Sugarcoated Arsenic by Kevin Jerome Everson and Claudrena Harold

    Sugarcoated Arsenic

  • No Ordinary Man

  • Crip Camp

  • The Murder of Fred Hampton

  • Tempestad

  • The Man with a Movie Camera

  • Upcoming
    Films
  • Upcoming
    Events
  • Selected
    Objects
  • Past
    Films
  • Past
    Events

Past Films

  • The Murder of Fred Hampton

    Howard Alk
    United States, 1971

    Restored 35mm Print

    Wednesday, September 1 7 PM
    Introduction by Melissa Charles

    This impassioned political documentary investigates the killing of Black Panther Fred Hampton and is an indictment of the Chicago police force.

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  • Tempestad

    Tatiana Huezo
    Mexico, 2017
    Wednesday, September 15 7 PM
    Introduction by Nicolás Pereda

    Built around interviews with two women, Tempestad employs asynchronous sound and evocative cinematography to suggest the omnipresent effects of organized crime in Mexico.

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  • National Silent Movie Day: The Man with a Movie Camera

    Dziga Vertov
    USSR, 1929
    Wednesday, September 29 7 PM
    Judith Rosenberg on Piano

    An ecstatic portrait of a city and its inhabitants and a compendium of camera and editing techniques, commenting on itself and our own watching, “Dziga Vertov’s experimental silent documentary upends reality in ways that are still dizzying, thrilling and strangely sexy” (Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian).

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  • No Ordinary Man

    Aisling Chin-Yee, Chase Joynt
    Canada, 2020
    Wednesday, October 13 7 PM
    Introduction by Mel Y. Chen

    “No Ordinary Man . . . is a genre unto itself, a meta-biographical film about a musician who earned his place in history posthumously, for reasons that he carefully avoided revealing throughout his life.” —Richard Brody, New Yorker

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  • Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution

    Nicole Newnham, James LeBrecht
    United States, 2020
    Wednesday, October 27 7 PM
    James LeBrecht, Sara Bolder, and Sunaura Taylor in Conversation

    A groundbreaking summer camp helps spark a national civil rights movement for people with disabilities in this award-winning documentary with “smart focus, remarkable archival footage and inspiring subjects” (Hollywood Reporter).

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  • Black Life Presents: Kevin Jerome Everson and Claudrena N. Harold’s UVA Black Fire Films

    Wednesday, November 10 7 PM
    Ryanaustin Dennis in Person

    Kevin Jerome Everson and Claudrena N. Harold’s UVA Black Fire films employ a radical, nonnarrative approach to represent the history of Black achievement and everyday life at the University of Virginia.

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