Co-presented by FilmScene’s African Diaspora Committee, the Out of the Archive series highlights overlooked work from Black filmmakers with a monthly screening and discussion of restored and archival work. Arrive early for a pre-show meal! This season is A Global Lens with films from around the world and throughout the diaspora, showcasing a diversity of cultures, genres, techniques, and eras.

Arrive hungry at 6:15pm for a pre-screening meal | Post-screening discussion

The relationship between mother and child is a sacred and delicate one—unique and personal across time and around the world. This pair of powerful shorts from two undersung virtuosos of British cinema navigates the specific relationships of the filmmakers and their mothers with beautifully poetic works of art that only they could create, making the individual universal.

THE BODY BEAUTIFUL (1991, UK, 23 min.) Dir. Ngozi Onwurah
This bold, stunning exploration of a white mother who undergoes a radical mastectomy and her Black daughter who embarks on a modeling career reveals the profound effects of body image and the strain of racial and sexual identity on their charged, intensely loving bond. At the heart of director Ngozi Onwurah’s brave excursion into her mother’s scorned sexuality is a provocative interweaving of memory and fantasy. The filmmaker plumbs the depths of maternal strength and daughterly devotion in an unforgettable tribute starring her real-life mother, Madge Onwurah.

DREAMING RIVERS (1988, 30 min.) Dir. Martina Attille
From Sankofa Film and Video comes this bittersweet and nostalgic short drama illustrating the spirit of modern families touched by the experience of migration. Miss T., from the Caribbean, lives alone in her one-room apartment, her children and husband having left her to pursue new dreams. When she dies her family and friends gather at her wake. The tapestry of words that interweave the drama convey the fragments of a life lived, but only partly remembered.