Filmography
Featuring well-known L.A. Rebellion works alongside rarely seen student films, this body of work represents not only the originality of the individuals whose names are on them, but a collective vision as well. Across the two decades during which they made their presence felt at UCLA, and in the decades since, individual L.A. Rebellion artists have focused on diverse topics and responded to evolving political and artistic thought through their work. Explorations of class, considerations of historical legacies, stories attentive to concerns of local communities and appreciations of other Black arts are only some of the areas of exploration. The films also display a diversity of forms, from irreverent reconfigurations of well-worn genre types, to groundbreaking experiments with cinematic language. Certain works, long out of circulation, represent rediscoveries and will certainly lead to much future scholarship.
Learn more about the UCLA Film & Television Archive’s ongoing “L.A. Rebellion” inititiative.
| Title | Year | |
|---|---|---|
 |
Maria's Story Nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 1991 Sundance Film Festival, Maria's Story follows Maria Serrano, a wife, mother, and guerrila leader on the frontlines of the battle for El Salvador three years before the end of a brutal civil war. |
1990 |
 |
Medea Made as Ben Caldwell’s first project at UCLA, Medea is a collage film that explores the information that permeates into a child before it is born. |
1973 |
 |
Momentum: A Conversation With Black Women on Achieving Advanced Degrees Filmmaker Zeinabu irene Davis looks at the accomplishments of a cohort of students at the University of California San Diego. With Jukiana (Jules) Smith, Erin Malone, Dr. Edwina Welch, Dr. Monika Gosin, and Dr. Patricia G. Davis. |
2010 |
 |
Mother of the River Zeinabu irene Davis' film begins with a Yoruba proverb from Nigeria: "Riddles are the horses of discourse." A little girl, Dofimae, living with her father in slavery and missing her mother, learns about the world through riddles told her by her father. She later nurses an old lady shaman who calls herself Mother of the River. The Mother of the River gives Dofimae painted eggs in return and promises to take her and her father up North someday. Dofimae later uses her slingshot to hit slavecatchers in the eyes with the eggs and blind them to prevent them from catching Mother of the River. |
1995 |
 |
My Brother's Wedding Laid off from his factory job, Pierce (Silas) marks time working at his family’s dry cleaning store, swapping loaded jabs with his brother’s upper middle-class fiancé and hanging out with his best friend, recently released from prison. Director Charles Burnett fleshes out Pierce’s sense of suspension with richly observed detail, the revelation of character bound to the revelation of an African American community, itself at a crossroads. |
1983 |
 |
Nappy-Headed Lady A work-in-progress by Melvonna Ballenger about middle class African American parents discussing why they have ordered their daughter to get rid of her afro. |
1985 |
 |
Nightjohn A literate slave teaches a young girl the power of words on a plantation in the 1830s South. Directed by Charles Burnett.
|
1996 |
 |
Passing Through Eddie Womack, an African-American jazz musician, is released from prison for the killing of a white gangster. Not willing to play for the mobsters who control the music industry, Womack searches for his musical mentor, Poppy Harris. Larry Clark's film repeatedly turns to various musicians improvising jazz, leading a French critic to call it “the only jazz film in the history of cinema.” |
1977 |
 |
Penitentiary Framed for the murder of a white biker, Martel “Too Sweet” Gordone learns to box his way to freedom in prison. Jamaa Fanaka's Penitentiary allegorizes African-American life, seeing the prison system as an arena of violent struggle against forces both external and internal that plays out on the bodies of the inmates. |
1979 |
 |
Penitentiary 2 Jamaa Fanaka continues the boxing saga of "Too Sweet" Gordone. Paroled after serving time for a murder he didn’t commit, prison boxing champ Martel "Too Sweet" Gordone hangs up his gloves, moves in with his sister’s family (his sister and her husband are both attorneys), and rekindles his romance with Clarisse. He soon learns that life on the outside isn’t much easier than it was in prison, when "Half Dead" Johnson escapes from prison and murders Clarisse. Though the loss of Clarisse is almost too much to bear, Too Sweet, with the help of his new trainer (Mr. T) returns to the fight game and begins his rise to the top. Meanwhile, brother-in-law Charles continues the battle against "Half Dead," who intends to destroy the entire Gordone family. |
1982 |
