Returning to NYC screens this Wednesday for the first time in a long time is Bold As Love’s literary editor’s Bridgett M. Davis’ landmark feature film Naked Acts.
Not enough can be said about the impact that Naked Acts had on a generation of Black and independent and female filmmakers with Davis putting together multilayered female characters full of humor, pathos, and (yes!) agency, as well as for her steadfast execution in getting the film out to the masses.
Making cinematic history, in September 1998 Davis and her team premiered Naked Acts at the historic Thalia Theater in Manhattan, where the opening night ticket buyers’ line of 600 people wrapped around the block. The film went on to run for four weeks, breaking box-office records for a single-screen, “exclusive” release without name actors, thanks to word-of-mouth and guerrilla-style marketing. It is now preserved as part of the permanent collection at the Black Film Center/Archives at Indiana University.
The director and accomplished author does count several influences toward the making of her film, including film co-star Renee Cox, and the recently re-released new film classic Kathleen Collins’ Losing Ground. Deeply inspired by Collins, Davis notes in her February 2015 review that, “ I thought of her as my guardian angel — and that spurred me to become one of the first African American women to write, direct and self-distribute a film.”
But you can learn more this Wednesday as Davis will indeed be present following the screening for a Q&A with the audience.
In full disclosure, and in totally shameless yet appropriate promotion, Naked Acts is being shown at my new microcinema, The Luminal Theater. Created to provide a fresh film screening and art-minded venue to Brooklyn, NY artists, programmers, and most immediately to the Bedford-Stuyvesant community (a longtime under-served artistic enclave), The Luminal had its official opening this past Friday and is proud to have Naked Acts as the first narrative feature film shown at its space.
See more about Naked Acts and The Luminal Theater, which is showing a variety of other films, at the cinema’s website LuminalTheater.org
Naked Acts
Wednesday 7/29 at 7pm
Directed by Bridgett Davis
With Jake-Ann Jones, Ron C. Jones, Renée Cox
87 min.
venue:
The Luminal Theater, 405 Tompkins Avenue , Brooklyn, NY 11221
(btw. Jefferson Ave. & Hancock St.)
Admission: $5 (unless otherwise noted)
