NAGB is proud to partner with Bahamian filmmaker Travolta Cooper and “The Cinemas” for the upcoming season for the NAGB Film Series. Cooper is a filmmaker with documentaries, a digital series, and an upcoming feature narrative film all at work; he is also the producer of the show “The Cinemas,” which is dedicated to the rise of Caribbean Cinema and under which banner he will be curating film with the NAGB.
We kick off the fall with two movies that celebrate the scary season: shown two weeks apart, they are nevertheless conceived as a pair, examining the loss of agency over one’s own body, whether that body is that of a white female or a black male. All screenings are FREE and open to the public.
Rosemary’s Baby
Rosemary’s Baby, a classic of the “cerebral horror” film which enjoyed a golden age in the late 1960’s and 1970’s, tells the story of Rosemary Woodhouse (Mia Farrow) who after becoming pregnant with her and Guy Woodhouse (John Cassevetes) first child, begins to suspect that their new neighbours are a evil cult who what to take her baby. The film is based on the book of celebrated feminist novelist Ira Levin. Academy Award wining Roman Polanski’s direction of Rosemary’s Baby is a masterclass on the craft of cinema. He is regarded as one of cinema’s greatest (and most scandalous) talents.
Get Out (Thursday, November 1st, 7:00 pm)
Get Out is in some ways the spiritual descendant of the Ira Levin novels like Rosemary’s Baby and The Stepford Wives. Only now instead of gender being at the forefront, race is. It tells the story of Chris (Daniel Kaluuya), a young black man who goes to meet the parents of his white girlfriend (Allison Williams) for the weekend. A weekend that becomes an almost Twilight Zone version of Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner. Get Out is the directorial debut of Jordan Peele. Not much in Mr. Peele’s TV or film history quite prepared us for the masterful direction of Get Out. And while he did not win the Oscar for best director, he did win the Academy Award for best original screenplay.
