People’s Cinema Club is a weekly film series curated by Philadelphia's independent film community.
This week’s screening:
Black Girl and Borom Sarret
Black Girl: Ousmane Sembène, one of the greatest and most groundbreaking filmmakers who ever lived and the most internationally renowned African director of the twentieth century, made his feature debut in 1966 with the brilliant and stirring Black Girl (La noire de . . .). Sembène, who was also an acclaimed novelist in his native Senegal, transforms a deceptively simple plot—about a young Senegalese woman who moves to France to work for a wealthy white couple and finds that life in their small apartment becomes a figurative and literal prison—into a complex, layered critique on the lingering colonialist mindset of a supposedly postcolonial world. Featuring a moving central performance by Mbissine Thérèse Diop, Black Girl is a harrowing human drama as well as a radical political statement—and one of the essential films of the 1960s.
Narrative Feature (1966)
Runtime: 59 min
Language: French, Wolof
Dir. Ousmane Sembène
Note: Subtitles are provided for this screening.
Borom Sarret: This groundbreaking short film, which won first prize at the 1963 Touris Film Festival in France, was the directorial debut of Ousmane Sembène.
Narrative Short (1963)
Runtime: 18 min
Language: French
Director: Ousmane Sembène
Note: Subtitles are available for this film.
About People’s Cinema Club
People’s Cinema Club is a microcinema powered by BlackStar at the Village of Industry and Art. The cinema club hosts intimate screenings for local audiences right in the heart of Center City Philadelphia. People’s Cinema Club is a collaboration between BlackStar Projects, cinéSPEAK, Philadelphia Latino Arts & Film Festival, and Philadelphia Asian American Film Foundation. Catch a new movie each week, curated by some of your favorite organizations at the helm of film culture in Philadelphia.
Join us every Tuesday at 6:30pm for classics, Philadelphia premieres, local films, and deep cuts right in the center of the city. Hosted in the screening room at the newly repurposed Village of Industry and Art, with free and accessible admission for all, People’s Cinema Club brings the magic of cinema to the Avenue of the Arts.
Grab a seat. Bring your friends. This is cinema for the people.
The People’s Cinema Club is made possible through support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The Village of Industry & Art is a center for creativity, craft, and community in the heart of Philadelphia, where makers and thinkers within historic buildings bring bold projects to life through process and practice.
Location
Village of Industry & Art (320 S. Broad) , Screening Room
Click here for more info on visiting the Village of Industry & Art
