Films

Fri, Feb 10, 2023 | 6:30–9 pm
Leslie Cheek Theater

In Young Soul Rebels, youth culture meets identity politics in this part-thriller, part–gay love story set in London in 1977. The hedonistic world of pirate DJs Chris and Caz is shattered when a close friend is killed while cruising in the local park. The Black community suspects the National Front, but the police pull Chris in as a suspect. This is a beautifully crafted period piece, a bold and stylish debut feature from Isaac Julien. (1991; 105 min; Rated R)

Special Guest speaker: Mark Boulos, Assistant Professor of Photography and Film, Virginia Commonwealth University. In tribute to VMFA’s exhibition: Isaac Julien: Lessons of the Hour—Frederick Douglass.

$8 (VMFA members $5)
Tickets for this film are also valid for Looking for Langston on February 12.

Sun, Feb 12, 2023 | 1–3 pm
Leslie Cheek Theater

Looking for Langston: A black-and-white, fantasy-like recreation of high-society gay men during the Harlem Renaissance, with archival footage and photographs intercut with a story. A wake is going on, and downstairs is an elegant bar where tuxedoed men dance and talk. One of them has a dream in which he comes upon Beauty, who seems to reject him, then he awakes, Beauty is sleeping beside him. Voices read from the poetry and essays of Langston Hughes. The text is rarely explicit, but the freedom of gay Black men in the 1920s in Harlem is suggested and celebrated visually. Directed by Isaac Julien. (1989; 45 min; Rated R)

Special Guest speaker: Valerie Cassel Oliver, VMFA’s Sydney and Frances Lewis Family Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, who organized the exhibition Isaac Julien: Lessons of the Hour—Frederick Douglass for VMFA..

$8 (VMFA members $5)
Tickets for this film are also valid for Young Soul Rebels on February 10.

Fri, Feb 17, 2023 | 6:30–9 pm
Leslie Cheek Theater

Huddie William Ledbetter (1889–1947), the singer known as Lead Belly, mastered the 12-string guitar and a slew of other instruments and wrote or recorded many iconic folk/blues standards such as “Rock Island Line,” “Midnight Special,” and “Goodnight Irene.” He led a rough-and-tumble life that makes for an entertaining and educational movie directed by Gordon Parks with an engaging portrayal by actor Roger E. Mosley. (1976; 127 min; in color, Rated PG).

This event is in tribute to VMFA’s current exhibition Storied Strings: The Guitar in American Art. The exhibition's curator, Dr. Leo Mazow, VMFA's Louise B. and J. Harwood Cochrane Curator of American Art, will speak.

$8 (VMFA members $5)

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