This festival of work by black artists from around the world continues Friday through Thursday, August 24 through 30, at the Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State. Unless otherwise noted, tickets are $9, $5 for Film Center members; for more information call 312-846-2800.
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RAugust the First In this self-assured debut feature, director Lanre Olabisi comes up with a novel twist on the typical broken home: instead of a black inner-city clan struggling to survive without a father, his comfortable family in suburban New Jersey is thrown for a loop when the patriarch who’s abandoned them (D. Rubin Green) returns home after a decade in Africa. Invited back by his younger son (Ian Alsup) for a graduation ceremony, dad encounters hostility from his wife, his mother-in-law, and his other two children. His good manners can’t mask a certain sinister aspect, but the other family members are so focused on their own pain that initially they can’t fathom the threat he represents. Larry Hillier’s restrained 16-millimeter photography underscores the actors’ naturalism, with Alsup a standout. 81 min. (AG) Olabisi will attend the Friday screening. a Fri 8/24, 6 PM, and Wed 8/29, 8:15 PM.
RSilent Choices For the most part this video documentary about black Americans’ attitudes toward abortion is evenhanded and instructive. Director Faith Pennick traces the history of reproductive rights from the early 20th century, when Margaret Sanger tried to make safe abortions available to poor African-Americans, to the 60s, when the Black Panther Party encouraged women to have large families as a revolutionary act. Pennick’s pro-choice agenda becomes more overt as she allots significant screen time to the role of Christian pastoral counselors; in a dialogue with pro-life Reverend Clement Childress, she uses a ticking clock on the soundtrack to emphasize his evasiveness. Her case is made more effectively in interviews with several women who consider their lives immeasurably better because they terminated early pregnancies. 60 min. (AG) Pennick will attend both screenings. a Sun 8/26, 5 PM, and Tue 8/28, 8 PM.
