Black Film Review

Last updated

Black Film Review (BFR) was an international publication focusing on films and filmmakers from the African diaspora, with a focus on independent cinema. BFR was published from 1984 to 1995. Its headquarters was in Washington DC. [1]

Contents

History

Founded by David Nicholson in 1984, the first undated issue of the publication was a one-page newsletter Nicholson produced on his PC, photocopied, and sent to several friends. The magazine was published by Sojourner Productions on a quarterly basis. [1]

Three more home-made issues followed, including a 24-page issue that included the magazine's first coverage of the Festival of Pan African Cinema Ouagadougu (FESPACO), an interview with Hollywood star Denzel Washington, and poetry by Amiri Baraka.[ citation needed ] In 1985, Nicholson entered into a co-publishing agreement with Anthony Gittens, director of the Black Film Institute of the University of the District of Columbia. With funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, the magazine was published in a redesigned format on glossy paper with photographs.

Editorship

Though Nicholson joined the staff of The Washington Post Book World as an editor and book reviewer in 1986, he continued to produce the magazine as editor and publisher for another year before turning over responsibility for it to Jacquie Jones. Under Jones, the publication expanded its coverage of Panafrican film and filmmakers, gaining significant acclaim. It was used as a text at many film schools within the United States and abroad. Contributors included film scholars Donald Bogle, Phyllis Klotman, Pat Aufderheide, Manthia Diawara, and Clyde Taylor. [2]

During its last two years of publication, BFR was co-published by Eric Easter, and edited by historian Leasa Farrar Frazer.

Related Research Articles

<i>Cahiers du Cinéma</i> French film journal

Cahiers du Cinéma is a French film magazine co-founded in 1951 by André Bazin, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, and Joseph-Marie Lo Duca. It developed from the earlier magazine Revue du Cinéma involving members of two Paris film clubs—Objectif 49 and Ciné-Club du Quartier Latin.

<i>New York Herald Tribune</i> Defunct American newspaper

The New York Herald Tribune was a newspaper published between 1924 and 1966. It was created in 1924 when Ogden Mills Reid of the New York Tribune acquired the New York Herald. It was regarded as a "writer's newspaper" and competed with The New York Times in the daily morning market. The paper won twelve Pulitzer Prizes during its lifetime.

<i>New York</i> (magazine) American lifestyle and politics magazine

New York is an American biweekly magazine concerned with life, culture, politics, and style generally, with a particular emphasis on New York City.

<i>Fangoria</i> American horror film fan magazine

Fangoria is an internationally distributed American horror film fan magazine, in publication since 1979. It is published four times a year by Fangoria Publishing, LLC and is edited by Phil Nobile Jr.

Exclaim! is a Canadian music and entertainment publisher based in Toronto, which features in-depth coverage of new music across all genres with a special focus on Canadian and emerging artists. The monthly Exclaim! print magazine publishes seven issues per year, distributing over 103,000 copies to over 2,600 locations across Canada. The magazine has an average of 361,200 monthly readers and their website, exclaim.ca, has an average of 675,000 unique visitors a month.

<i>Film Threat</i> American online film review publication

Film Threat is an American online film review publication, and earlier, a national magazine that focused primarily on independent film, although it also reviewed videos and DVDs of mainstream films, as well as Hollywood movies in theaters. It first appeared as a photocopied zine in 1985, created by Wayne State University students Chris Gore and André Seewood. In 1997, Film Threat was converted to a solely online resource.

<i>Jet</i> (magazine) African-American weekly magazine formerly based in Chicago

Jet is an American weekly digital magazine focusing on news, culture, and entertainment related to the African-American community. Founded in November 1951 by John H. Johnson of the Johnson Publishing Company in Chicago, Illinois, the magazine was billed as "The Weekly Negro News Magazine". Jet chronicled the civil rights movement from its earliest years, including the murder of Emmett Till, the Montgomery bus boycott, and the activities of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

USA Today Sports is an American sports website owned by the Gannett Company. It is a vertical of Gannett's flagship newspaper USA Today. It is the publisher of USA Today Sports Weekly, an American sports newsmagazine published weekly. The website and magazine largely feature coverage of baseball news from Major League Baseball (MLB), Minor League Baseball and the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) from spring to early fall, as well as football coverage from the National Football League (NFL) during the fall and winter months. The magazine also features statistics for each covered league and interviews with players and staff members.

Take One was a Canadian magazine devoted to coverage of both Canadian and international film.

<i>Film Comment</i> American arts and culture magazine

Film Comment is the official publication of Film at Lincoln Center. It features reviews and analysis of mainstream, art-house, and avant-garde filmmaking from around the world. Founded in 1962 and originally released as a quarterly, Film Comment began publishing on a bi-monthly basis with the Nov/Dec issue of 1972. The magazine's editorial team also hosts the annual Film Comment Selects at the Film at Lincoln Center. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, publication of the magazine was suspended in May 2020, and its website was updated on March 10, 2021, with news of the relaunch of the Film Comment podcast and a weekly newsletter.

<i>Surfer</i> (magazine) Monthly sports magazine in the US (1962–2020)

Surfer was an American monthly periodical focused on surfing and surf culture, founded in 1962 by noted surfer, writer, photographer, artist and humorist John Severson (1933–2017). The magazine folded in 2020.

IndieWire is a film industry and film criticism website that was established in 1996. The site's focus was predominantly independent film, although its coverage has grown to "include all aspects of Hollywood and the expanding universes of TV and streaming". IndieWire is part of Penske Media.

<i>Cinema X</i> British film magazine

Cinema X was a British film magazine best known for its coverage of sexploitation films. Early issues of the magazine were undated, but it is believed the first issue was published in 1969. The first film to grace the cover of Cinema X was Loving Feeling (1969), directed by Norman J. Warren. Other films covered in the first issue were I Am Curious (Yellow) (1967), Curse of the Crimson Altar (1968), and Therese and Isabelle (1968). Interviewees in the premiere issue included Norman J Warren, John Trevelyan and Anthony Newley.

Cinema Canada (1972–1989) is a defunct Canadian film magazine, which served as the trade journal of record for the Canadian film and television sector. The magazine had its origins in the Canadian Society of Cinematographers (CSC), which began publishing a bi-monthly newsletter under the name Canadian Cinematography in 1962. In 1967, the publication's name was changed to Cinema Canada. In 1972, the CSC approached George Csaba Koller and Phillip McPhedran of Toronto to produce a glossier format. However, this association lasted only four issues, after which McPhedran resigned for personal reasons.

<i>Pacific RailNews</i>

Pacific RailNews(PRN), originally named Pacific News and later RailNews, was an American monthly magazine about railroads and rail transit, oriented for railfans. It was published from 1961 until 1999. Although its coverage primarily concerned the western United States and western Canada, the magazine included less-detailed news on railroads and rail-transit from non-western states, as well as Mexico.

Charles John Musser is a film historian, documentary filmmaker, and a film editor. Since 1992, he has taught at Yale University, where he is currently a professor of Film and Media Studies as well as American Studies and Theater Studies. His research has primarily focused on early cinema, and topics such as Edwin S. Porter, Oscar Micheaux, race cinema of the silent era, Paul Robeson, film performance, as well as a variety of issues and individuals in documentary. His films include An American Potter (1976), Before the Nickelodeon: The Early Cinema of Edwin S. Porter (1982) and Errol Morris: A Lightning Sketch (2014).

<i>Emerge</i> (magazine)

Emerge was a monthly news magazine that was published from 1989 to 2000. Its primary focus was on issues of interest to African Americans. In 2000, Time said Emerge was "the nation's best black newsmagazine for the past seven years" the St. Louis Post-Dispatch described it as "the premier source for intellectual discussion on issues affecting African-Americans", and the New York Amsterdam News wrote that "it had no rival for cutting edge news for and about the black community". The magazine was headquartered in Washington, D.C.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Imruh Bakari</span> Filmmaker and writer born in St Kitts (born 1950)

Imruh Bakari is a film maker and writer born in 1950 on St Kitts, who is also referred to as Imruh Bakari Caesar or Imruh Caesar. He currently teaches Film Studies at the University of Winchester. He works in the UK and a number of African countries in the area of culture and the creative industries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jessie Maple</span> American cinematographer (1937–2023)

Jessie Maple was an American cinematographer and film director most noted as a pioneer for the civil rights of African Americans and women in the film industry. Her 1981 film Will was among the first feature-length dramatic films created by an African American woman.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">African American cinema</span> Films made by, for, or about black Americans

African American cinema is loosely classified as films made by, for, or about Black Americans. Historically, African American films have been made with African-American casts and marketed to African-American audiences. The production team and director were sometimes also African American. More recently, Black films featuring multicultural casts aimed at multicultural audiences have also included American Blackness as an essential aspect of the storyline.

References

  1. 1 2 Abrash, Barbara (1 August 1992). Mediating History: The Map Guide to Independent Video by and About African Americans, Asian Americans, Latino, and Native American People. NYU Press. p. 127. ISBN   978-0-8147-0620-6.
  2. Guerrero, Ed (20 June 2012). Framing Blackness: The African American Image in Film. Temple University Press. p. 249. ISBN   978-1-4399-0413-8.