“What we wanted to emphasize with the programming is the real range of work and the impact and power of what these women were trying to do in telling Black women’s stories.”
Author Archives: Arionne Nettles
Posted inFilm
Showcasing Black actors in foreign cinema
Floyd Webb is the curator of the Black Actors in Foreign Cinema screening series, co-presented by nonprofit media arts organization Chicago Filmmakers and his company, the Blacknuss Network.
Posted inFilm
Neptune Frost is limitless
It’s a sci-fi, Afrofuturistic story that is also a musical that takes place in the past, present, and future, while also spanning the wide depths of identity and innovation.
Posted inArts & Culture
‘We can imagine our way into something else’
When Anthony Holmes goes to the doctor today, he’s asked: How many heart attacks have you had? That’s because, Holmes says, the torture he faced in 1973 at the hands of then-Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge included shocking him with an electric shock box and suffocating him with plastic bags. Burge and the mostly white […]
Posted inFilm
The Outfit is a layer in Chicago’s storied past
“I think the Chicago gangland history is something [that] falls like the snow in Chicago.”
Posted inArts & Culture
Black joy ‘Is where it’s at!’
When artist Adeshola Makinde thinks about the work in his current exhibition, it’s a giant, larger-than-life canvas image of the legendary Louis Armstrong—Makinde’s largest-scale piece he’s done to date—that rises to the top of his favorites list. “To me, [Armstrong] represented unrelenting optimism, amidst what I could imagine was pretty, pretty unbearable things that he […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Black creatives never stopped creating
This year’s Black Creativity is a testament to the artists and program leaders who didn’t give up on shining a spotlight on Black art.
Posted inColumns & Opinion
Media’s ‘utter lack of humanity’
Chicago police killed 13-year-old Adam Toledo, and some media responded by questioning Toledo’s character. Black and Brown kids deserve better.
Posted inBest of Chicago
The return of drive-ins
Outdoor theaters like Lakeshore let us scream together at a safe distance.
Posted inFilm
Revolution vs. reform: Judas and the Black Messiah
With knockout performances comes an examination of the need for revolutionaries when pushing for real change.
Posted inArts & Culture
Chicago museums and galleries prepare to optimistically reopen
The leaders of the city’s cultural institutions remain encouraged after facing the most recent round of closings in November.
Posted inFilm
Netflix’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is a beautiful heartbreak
The film adaptation of the August Wilson play shows how Black folks navigate the power struggles that white structures create.
Posted inFilm
An Unapologetic love letter to Chicago’s Black women activists
The documentary takes audiences to the front lines with millennial women leading the city’s Movement for Black Lives.