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Black history month
Documentaries deserve the spotlight at the Black Harvest Festival.
For 15 years, the programmers at the Gene Siskel Film Center have performed a delicate balancing act with the Black Harvest International Festival of Film and Video; the festival celebrates the black experience with films from around the world, but the programmers also put an emphasis on African-American films and especially on Chicago’s homegrown productions. They want a mix of documentaries and fiction films, big-budget productions and ultra-indies. On top of that, they want some star power to draw in crowds.
Judging from the ten films we previewed, the festival’s real strength this year is in documentaries. There are two uplifting docs about education; both are quite good, and both emphasize the enormous impact one great teacher or coach can have. Pressure Cooker taps into the popularity of cooking-competition TV shows, but with a twist. Philadelphia teacher Wilma Stephenson teaches inner-city high-school students how to cook, with the goal of making them employable in the hospitality industry. The film builds toward a competition for scholarship money, and filmmakers Mark Becker and Jennifer Grausman unapologetically milk the suspense, but what really holds the film together is Stephenson, a stern disciplinarian who makes the tough-love teachers you’ve seen in Hollywood films look like wimps. She berates her students and won’t take any shit. Period. But (and here comes the aww moment), she does it out of love and tireless dedication to the idea that these kids deserve a chance and will thrive if given some structure.
Change cooking to marching band, and you’ve got the outline of Ballou, which profiles the Ballou High School marching band. Located in the most impoverished section of Washington, D.C., Ballou is about as tough as inner-city schools get, but it has produced amazing marching bands that earn praise from notables such as Jesse Jackson and Colin Powell. Director Michael Patrei shows how the tireless staff (mostly volunteers) give the band members a second family and a sense of purpose in their lives.
Would that we could praise Pirate Pride and make it three great docs about high school. Alas, this look at the basketball program at suburban Maywood’s Proviso East High School feels like a promotional video.
Other docs in the festival delve into African-American history. Though we found the narration grating and the reenactments unnecessary padding, Inside Buffalo does retrieve an important chapter in African-American history: the heroism of black soldiers in Italy during World War II. Similarly, Scarred Justice: The Orangeburg Massacre 1968 explores an inexplicably forgotten incident when black student protestors were killed by police. It’s an important work of historical reportage.
Radical Disciple, which tells the story of lightning-rod priest Michael Pfleger, should appeal to Chicago audiences. Filmmaker Bob Hercules does give Pfleger’s critics some time to speak, but it’s clear that Hercules sides with Pfleger in his campaigns to bring social justice to his parish, even when the Catholic hierarchy just wants Pfleger to shut up.
The Black Harvest International Festival of Film and Video runs Friday 7 through September 3.
