African Film Festival
In the colonial Martinique of 1931 a black woman (Darling Legitimus) works to save her grandson from the life of the sugar plantations, determined to send him to the city to get an education (1983). An unusual portrait of life in the French colonies, graced by a convincing evocation of time and place but compromised by a formulaic, conventionally sentimental screenplay. With Garry Cadenat and Doula Seck; Euzhan Palcy (A Dry White Season) directed. (DK) (Ferguson Theater, 7:00)
A 1992 Colombian documentary by Maria Bozi about the Cimarrones, African slaves who escaped and settled on the coast of Colombia. On the same program, Joel Zito Araujo’s short Brazilian video Portrait in Black and White (1992). (Hokin Hall Theater, 9:00 am)
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Illusions
Sergio Giral’s 1975 Cuban film reproduces a 19th-century antislavery novel as its upper-class liberal author wrote it, then runs through the story again with Marxist revisions. It’s an interesting structural experiment, but the ideas are often better than the execution. (DK) Giral will be present to discuss his feature. (Hokin Theater, 3:30)
Maluala
