Sisters In Cinema
Yvonne Welbon, 2003, 62 min.
Sisters In Cinema traces the careers of inspiring African American women filmmakers from the early part of the 20th century to today.

When I started film school in 1991 I only knew the name of one African American woman director – Julie Dash. I didn't know what she looked like, I'd never seen any of her films, and I had no idea why or how she became a filmmaker. I learned that I was not alone. I heard over and over again, 'I didn't know there were any black women filmmakers.' So I set out to find my sisters in cinema. – Yvonne Welbon

Welbon's first stop in her search takes her to the major Hollywood studios where she soon discovers that of the multitude of feature films produced only one was directed by an African American woman (Darnell Martin's I Like It Like That) and a handful produced, distributed or acquired by mini-majors. Realizing that she wasn't going to find her sisters in cinema in Hollywood, Welbon, instead travels the independent path to uncover a wide range of films directed by an African American women outside of the Hollywood studio system

Unspoken Conversation
Iman Uqdah Hameen, 1987, 24 min.
A wife of a jazz musician, and mother of two, decides to return to college to pursue her dream of becoming a filmmaker. The story takes us through her journey as a budding creative striving to mesh her film school life with the demands of her marriage and family life.

First prize winner of the CCNY Picker Film Institute film festival (1987), this autobiographical piece focused on her struggle to make both worlds mesh - family and film.

Iman Uqdah Hameen was a former student and mentee of Prof. Kathleen Collins Prettyman at City College in Harlem.

The screening will be followed by a discussion with Iman Uqdah Hameen (filmmaker) and Ina Archer (curator).