This annual festival of films and videos by black artists from around the world continues Friday through Thursday, August 8 through 14, at the Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State. Tickets are $8, $4 for Film Center members, and $3 for students at the School of the Art Institute. For further information, call 312-846-2800. Films marked with an * are highly recommended; unless otherwise noted, all screenings are in 35-millimeter.

  • Sisters in Cinema

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Yvonne Welbon (Living With Pride: Ruth C. Ellis @ 100) wrote and directed this warm and expertly crafted video documentary about the history of black women in American cinema, from Zora Neale Hurston’s ethnographic projects in the 1920s to current indie directors like Kasi Lemmons (Eve’s Bayou) and Julie Dash (Daughters of the Dust). In the process she spotlights some forgotten pioneers–like Eloyce King Patrick Gist, a Texan who produced race films in the 30s–and elicits sharp observations from people like Neema Barnette and Jessie Maple, who broke into the business via TV in the 60s. Welbon ends on an upbeat note, predicting even more breakthroughs in the next decade. But when Chicago’s own Coquie Hughes appears near the end, her street dialect (“You know what I’m sayin’?”) contrasts dramatically with the “white” English of the more successful interviewees, suggesting that, for all the celebration of “new voices,” some accents aren’t yet welcome in the mainstream. 60 min. (JJ) Welbon will attend the screening. (8:15)

Sugar Cane Alley

Benjamin and William Deng were children when they walked from Sudan to Ethiopia in 1987, part of an exodus of 20,000 “lost boys” displaced by civil war. After years in a Kenyan refugee camp, William has resettled in Houston, but Benjamin has been left behind. Their heroic survival story is strewn with disappointments–the education William is promised doesn’t materialize, and Benjamin is ashamed to learn his brother works break-ing down boxes. British director Arthur Howe’s 2002 video is mostly competent, but recurrent lighting and exposure problems leave African faces visible in one shot and underexposed in the next. The high point is a beautiful call-and-response sung at a refugee’s funeral by his mourning countrymen. 87 min. (FC) To be projected from Beta SP video. (7:45)

The narrator at the outset of this video feature by Chicagoan Coquie Hughes promises a story about “real life, real people, real issues.” What we get is a story about troubled lesbian relationships that’s shrill in tone and clueless in execution. Outside of some raunchy girl talk and tough attitude that may be true to the African-American “gyrl” milieu, Hughes offers only Jerry Springer situations in which men are sexist abusers and women are tantrum throwers, then abruptly terminates the mess with a sanctimonious public service announcement about domestic violence. 75 min. (TS) (3:00)

See listing for Friday, August 8. (6:15)