I am proud to be part of Black World Cinema’s “Black Militancy & Revolution On Screen” program and virtual screening series organized by Chicago’s own Floyd Webb and Imani Davis, two of our countries most knowledgeable Black radical film programmers.
Corresponding to my own artistic and moral proclivities as it relates to anti-Capitalist and Anti-Racist and anti-Imperialist Liberation politics, this series is deeply embedded in my own artistic past and trajectory– I was an active participant in the creation and promulgation of the second wave of Black Revolutionary drama in the 1990’s in NYC and it was later through Floyd Webb that my own marginalized work began to be re-assessed and appreciated by a whole new generation in 2014 when As an Act of Protest screened in Chicago after a twelve- year ban on the film in the USA.
This Sunday, September 12, 2021 at 4pm Eastern Standard time, Black World Cinema TV celebrates and screen Oscar Williams’ revolutionary movie “The Final Comedown” inspired and based on Jimmy Garrett’s Black Arts Movement masterpiece “And We Own The Night,” quite possibly the most revolutionary one act play ever written. Oscar William’s 1972 motion picture subverts both the action movie genre and the the coming-of-age story by adhering to the spirit and at times the literal text of Garret’s startling drama.
Starring Billy Dee Williams in, quite possibly, his most radical role – politically and aesthetically – Williams is wonderful as the passionate revolutionary Johnny. Williams’ charming, suave demeanor, and blue-jazz cool is all there already…but seething beneath – within it – is a vault of revolutionary fervor about to explode. Join us Sunday and check back here for additional notes, writings and thoughts on this film and everything related to it by the end of this month when Visual Liberation is live.
Kangalee's Cave 