Despite the best efforts of certain folks who’d rather overlook the contributions Black Americans have made to culture, science, and technology, it’s still Black History Month.
What better way to celebrate and learn about that history than a film festival of movies that have highlighted Black actors, directors, and culture over the past century? I did just that a couple of years ago, but I had a bit of a head start compared to a lot of people due to my past interest in the Blaxploitation genre.
That’s where film festival programmers like Imani Davis come in. The Chicago transplant is the head programmer for Los Angeles’ American Cinematheque, curating festivals such as Beyond Fest, the highest attended genre film festival in the country, and Davis’ own brainchild, Proof Festival, which exhibits proof-of-concept shorts for industry professionals, helping new and independent filmmakers acquire funding and other connections needed to take their next steps into features.
As the lead programmer, it’s Davis’ job to ensure that films get the audiences they deserve, whether that’s to preserve and promote repertory classics or highlight underserved communities within the film industry — like Black filmmakers, who’ve traditionally been left out of the canon despite being some of the first and most innovative creators and subjects in the space (just check out Jordan Peele’s Nope, a meta-commentary on this phenomenon masquerading as a summer blockbuster monster movie).
Davis graciously sat down for a Zoom interview with Uproxx about her work, from highlighting underseen staples to the importance of uplifting those underrepresented voices for the edification of all cinema. And, of course, she gave her recommendations for the must-see films of Black cinema for Black History Month.
You have one of the coolest jobs I can think of, which is like, “Hey, I think you should watch these movies. These are cool movies.” What are some of the challenges or benefits of being Black in that curator role?
I never thought it was going to be a full-time thing. I studied film studies in undergrad at Ohio State University. I also got my master’s at Northwestern University and dabbled in a lot of things film-related. I really liked the history and theory side of my classes, really geeked out on certain movements such as the rise of the blockbuster in the ’80s and multiplexes and malls and how that changed things.
So, I would geek out on the history part of things. Then, after graduating and exploring things, at first, I really wanted to be a screenwriter. I had a concentration in screenwriting, but I quickly pivoted my first year. I was like, “I love writing, the storytelling aspect of things. I think there’s something else, other things that I want to do in film, too.”
I loved watching movies, loved writing pieces about them, and I then learned about programming in the Chicago indie artist-run space scene. There’s a lot of cool micro cinemas and used abandoned storefronts playing films and such. And there’s this really cool student-run film society at University Of Chicago that anyone could get involved in, called Doc Films. That’s where I learned a lot about programming.
No one was paying me for it in Chicago. I was very much just dabbling, having fun and getting to know people, and getting really involved in this programming community. That’s how I ended up getting connected to the American Cinematheque and it turning into a full-time job. It’s a profession and job that is pretty mystified in general. Not a lot of people know about it. I didn’t even know about it.
What are some aspects of this kind of work that make it rewarding or challenging? Why is it so important for the role to have a Black perspective?
I thought a lot about this in undergrad and in grad school. What is the canon of cinema, especially the western canon? It’s very white. Since the beginning of film as a medium, as an art form, it’s been dominated by older white men. It’s the reason why women are still so underrepresented as directors in the industry. It started as that, so it’s going to take a long time to undo that. Just now, we’re having this moment of seeing more Black directors, the Jordan Peeles, the Ryan Cooglers, the Ava DuVernays. That is all very, very recent.
Of course, they’re pioneers, but even coming into programming with that knowledge of digging back in the older films, even newer films, there’s going to be a lack of diversity. What can I do in my role as a film programmer to unearth and rediscover it, especially now that things are getting restored, too? I remember when I first came in, it was pretty recent when we showed Kathleen Collins’ Losing Ground and that was a restoration. It’s such a beautiful film by a Black woman director, and it’s amazing.
What’s the significance of a budget? We talk about big budget, small budget, and I don’t think anybody knows what a budget actually does.
I feel like the budget is everything, and it is that big distinction between a lot of the times, indie independent versus studio. There aren’t a lot of, especially nowadays, studio-backed films that go below a certain budget. They’re always higher and there’s just more stakes. So I would say the bigger a budget is, the more people are involved and the higher the stakes are. So there are a lot of things that have to come in to justify a bigger budget.
So maybe it’s like, “Oh, it has to be an action or this big-budget action movie, and it has to be these kinds of stars because then it’ll get more international distribution and people will go see it in other countries, too.” There are just more things that get added to the mix.
Things get expensive. That’s the base of a budget, all those line items that add up for the movie. There’s a script fee. There’s the actors, of course. There’s a location, there’s food on set, and you’ve definitely got to feed your people. That is definitely a big one. All the technical aspects. Is there VFX? Is there a special sound that you have to do post-production? Post-production comes into that, the editing, all that stuff.
So what do you look for in films that you want to highlight for American Cinematheque, and how would that differ from something like Proof Festival, which you put on yourself?
Proof is actually one of the American Cinematheque festivals. So when I came in, there was a want to do more with short films and emerging filmmakers in general. We have three theaters that we program at almost every day, and we show all kinds of things, new films, older films. With that, we’re always looking for a balance with the calendar. I think with me and the rest of the programming team, we all have very different, sometimes overlapping tastes, and so you can see that in the calendar, too. That was very intentional to have a well-rounded, diverse programming team that is going out making decisions about the films that we’re showing and what we think that our audience is going to react to.
We have our Beyond Fest audience that is more into horror, thriller, genre films. It’s really eventized with our Beyond Fest screenings. We also have these new restorations, like I mentioned, Losing Ground, which maybe has more of an academic side of the audience that is like, “Oh, I read about that film. I knew about that film from this book and that movement.” So there’s just all different kinds of audiences that we’re trying to reach.
We have a new Neon or A24 movie coming out, and then we’re also showing classic Hollywood things. So, every time we look at the calendar and the month of what’s playing, we want something for everyone represented. That’s always our goal for the day-to-day American Cinematheque. It definitely differs from Proof, which is a short film festival specifically for proof-of-concept short films, because those films haven’t even been made yet.
That’s really cool. When you were talking about getting ready to screen for different tastes and different varieties and things, it reminds me of what I do as a music writer. I have to listen to stuff that I wouldn’t listen to on my own. People sometimes get invited to watch movies or things that they wouldn’t want; “I’m not a horror person, I just can’t handle blood.” What’s your trick or whatever for getting into something that isn’t your genre?
Oh my gosh. I love how you said the genre that I’ll specifically talk about here. I am a big scaredy-cat. I’m not into horror. I feel like I’m a little more into it now, especially since starting this job. We show a lot of it, and I have desensitized myself and grown to appreciate horror for what it is, too. But I just had to do exposure therapy for myself and knowing that a big part of our audience is really into horror. Working at the American Cinematheque, I definitely need to watch horror, grow to appreciate it, know maybe what’s working, what’s not, and know if it’s a good fit for our audience. There’s all different kinds of horror, too. Maybe there’s the blockbuster studio horror and then maybe smaller art house horror.
If you had to distill Black cinematic education down to five movies, which are those movies and what are the criteria you are going to use?
My first instinct is to kind of go back in time. What are those really early films? What can stretch across, what are five films that can hit these different movements and eras to different points in our cinematic history? I do want to include this film that I’ve been talking about the whole time, which hopefully people will watch after they read this: Losing Ground.
It has this reminiscent tone of Black filmmakers getting into their own, portraying their own experiences on screen. Really personal stories in an independent fashion, too. So I think that film is a great showcase of those beginnings. All Dirt Roads Taste Of Salt from Raven Jackson as another example.
And then I feel like I have to put Do The Right Thing in there. I think Spike Lee really represents a Black filmmaker that was really able to have his work inserted into the canon and talked about and written about by scholars and academics.
I’d also want to put something from the LA Rebellion, which was a movement here in California from filmmaking students. Charles Burnett was in that movement, so maybe Killer Of Sheep, of these students that were rebelling against what was out there in terms of Black representation and out there in terms of accessibility for Black filmmakers and funding their really scrappy, beautiful personal films.
That’s three. I’m going to put in Moonlight for sure as a more recent film that I feel is just talked about a lot and has also really stretched the boundaries of how Black cinema is talked about. And another one that’s in that same vein of just big popularity is Get Out.
