BFI Celebrates The Best Of Black Screen Acting with BFI Black Star

IMAGE VIA BFI

Let’s not beat around the bush, if you’re a black minority 2016 has been a completely shit year. Recently, in America cops killing black people and in the UK the rise of hate crime since the EU referendum and earlier on in the year the Oscar’s were so white.

Now, more than ever, it’s important to celebrate the great work black people have done to make this world a better place, especially in the film industry. Which is why the BFI (British Film Institute) last night launched the UK’s biggest ever celebration of black screen actors called BFI BLACK STAR.

BLACK STAR will be taking place from 17th October to 31st December and will be available to everyone in the UK, in cinemas including BFI Southbank, on the BBC, online via BFI player and on DVD/Blu-Ray including films such as the Forrest Whitaker lead “The Crying Game” and for the first time ever in this format 1954’s “Carman Jones” starring Harry Belafonte.

IMAGE VIA BFI

Highlights of BFI Black Star include:

• The release of two major films across cinemas in the UK; John Singleton’s 1991 Oscar-nominated “Boyz N The Hood” starring Ice Cube, Cuba Gooding Jr., Laurence Fishbourne, Nia Long and Angela Bassett. Then you also have 1967’s multi-Oscar winning “In The Heat Of The Night” starring Sidney Poitier, Rod Steiger and Warren Oates. There’s also a third film to be announced. 

courtesy of Park Circus / Sony Pictures

• Over 275 bespoke screenings and events in over 90 different locations across the UK.

• A new audience-led poll to find the British public’s Best Black Screen Performance of All Time.

• An agenda-setting Symposium event at the BFI London Film Festival (LFF), which will bring leading international filmmakers and industry professionals from both the UK and US to question why opportunities from black actors to shine on screen in both sides of the Atlantic remain limited and ask what more can be done to effect positive change.

• Also during LFF on of the opening galas will be “Queen of Katwe”, directed by Mira Nair and starring David Oyelowo and Lupita Nyong’o, also “A United Kingdom” will be opening the LFF public programme and is directed by Amma Asante and also stars Oyelowo and Rosamund Pike. 

IMAGE VIA PATHE

• A major multi-channel partnership with BBC TV and Radio, including Black Star Movie Night on BBC Two in November, films on BBC iPlayer, and a Paul Robeson documentary.

There is so much more the BFI are doing during Black Star and one of them is focusing on education.

Heather Stewart, Creative Director of the BFI, said “Imagine cinema history without Paul Robeson, Dorothy Dandridge, Sidney Poitier, Pam Grier, and Samuel L Jackson – some of the greatest actors to light up our screens with their charisma and talent. Now imagine how much richer our shared memory would be, had the opportunities available to black actors matched their abilities. With BLACK STAR we are celebrating great performances and bringing them back to the big screen for everyone to enjoy. And we are also asking searching questions, of our industry and of ourselves, driven by a passion to meet the expectations of audiences who rightly expect to see their stories and aspirations reflected on screen.”

BLACK STAR Programmer, Ashley Clark, added “BLACK STAR shows us many stories of black stardom, on both sides of the Atlantic. From cinema’s earliest trail-blazers to today’s transatlantic stars, I’m excited for audiences to enjoy icons, heroes and heroines back on the big screen where they belong.”

courtesy of Park Circus/MGM Studios

To find out more about BFI BLACK STAR then click on the link here - www.bfi.org.uk/blackstar and use the hashtag #BFIBLACKSTAR and if you want your say on what’s the best black screen performance of all time use the hashtag #MyBlackStar.

If you want to know more info please comment below or tweet me @Shaun_Wren and I’ll do my best to find out the answers for you.