Work Of Pioneering Filmmakers Camille Billops And James Hatch Lands First Worldwide Theatrical Retrospective

09.01.2023 - 20:49 / deadline.com

EXCLUSIVE: Filmmakers Camille Billops and James Hatch, who explored African American cultural life in a series of highly acclaimed documentaries, will receive the first worldwide theatrical retrospective of their work together.

Third World Newsreel announced today it will launch the retrospective on February 3 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, featuring a 4K restoration of the couple’s Suzanne, Suzanne, originally released in 1982, and 2K digitizations of their five succeeding films, culminating with their last film together, 2002’s A String of Pearls [scroll down to see a trailer of the retrospective].

“Centering Black cultural life and storytelling on screen,” a release from Third World Newsreel noted, “these autobiographical films innovate documentary form and artfully weave together personal histories and social issues.”

Suzanne, Suzanne was named to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in 2016. The documentary “focuses on Billops’ niece unpacking her past abuse and how it reverberates throughout her family. Through confronting these difficult emotions, the film provides a catharsis for the participants. Author and activist bell hooks said that the film ‘remains one of the most powerful documentaries of domestic life.’”

Finding Christa from 1991, finds “Billops facing her own reckoning,” Third World Newsreel observed. “Billops documents her reunion with her daughter whom she gave up for adoption, along with the complex circumstances and feelings that both led to that decision, and also resulted from it.”

In a statement, Third World Newsreel executive director J.T. Takagi said, “The work of Camille Billops and James Hatch defiantly challenges documentary norms and is a revelatory experience of their