Academy unearths long-lost ‘race films’ in Black cinema exhibit

Los Angeles: Long before Denzel Washington, Spike Lee or even Sidney Poitier, generations of pioneering and revolutionary Black US filmmakers played a key role in shaping early American cinema and dispelling pejorative stereotypes, a major new Hollywood exhibition argues.

"Regeneration: Black Cinema 1898-1971," opening at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles on Sunday, charts key moments in Black film history that were either ignored by mainstream Hollywood studios and audiences in their day, or have been long forgotten.

Starting with a recently re-discovered 1898 reel of two Black vaudeville performers embracing, the exhibition tells the largely unknown history of "race films" -- hundreds of pre-1960s independent movies made with Black casts specifically for Black audiences, at a time when theaters were racially segregated.

"Are you ready for the secret? That we Black folks have always been present in American film, right from the start," said Oscar-nominated filmmaker Ava DuVernay, at a press preview this week.

"Present not as caricatures and stereotypes, but as creators and producers and innovators and eager audiences.

She added: "We should have seen it long before now. But this is the day it begins."

"Regeneration" is only the second major temporary exhibit to be presented at the Academy Museum, which was opened by the organization behind the Oscars last September after years of delays.

It displays Poitier´s historic Oscar -- loaned by his widow, from his 1964 best actor win for "Lilies of the Field" -- as well as tap shoes worn by the Nicholas Brothers, a trumpet played by Louis Armstrong, and a costume worn by Sammy Davis Jr in "Porgy and Bess."

Planning for the exhibition began back in 2016, as curators delved into the Academy´s extensive archives, and found early promotional posters for movies with blurbs boasting of "An All-Negro Cast" and a "Stupendous All-Star Negro Motion Picture."

"I was surprised because I did not know about these films before we started to work on this exhibition," co-curator Doris Berger told AFP.

"I asked myself ´why don´t we know about this? We should know about this!´

"They are really exciting films and great proof that African-American performers had roles in all characters, and there were many story lines.

"And plus, they just look really cool!"