This February, come celebrate Black cinema at The Grand! Our Tuesday Film Series, Classic Film Series, and Weird Elephant Series each present films directed by Black filmmakers and films starring Black casts throughout the month. Stay tuned as we continue to announce our programming, including short films by local Black filmmakers paired with feature films. Click here for part 2 with info on our Weird Elephant Series films.

Tuesday Film Series

Showtimes programmed by 5pm on the monday of the week prior. Expect one matinee and one evening showing.

To Sleep with Anger

Film critic Soraya Nadia McDonald writes, "There’s no Moonlight without Charles Burnett." 

We kick off our Tuesday Film Series with To Sleep with Anger, Burnett's "singular artistic achievement that transcends categorization, seamlessly incorporating elements of family drama, dark comedy and magical realism" (UCLA Film & Television Archive).

Burnett on To Sleep with Anger:

Times were changing, drug culture was taking over South Central, and you could see the new generation was missing something, a direction. The sense of community is one thing. People were living in a vacuum after the Civil Rights Movement dispersed. Blacks from different classes were separated. The close-knit family which promoted responsibility was now a hole, and the folk tales and superstitions, which I hard rejected when I was younger, meant something. Richard’s character has forgotten about the family’s roots, he represents that absence. It makes you vulnerable to Danny’s character, it’s a bit of a cautionary tale. (IndieWire)

Screens with The Peace Bus trailer by Tacoma filmmaker Kwabi Amoah-Forson. Filmmaker will be in attendance.

» Screens Tuesday, February 4. TRAILER & MORE INFO «

Medicine for Melancholy

On February 11 we then turn to filmmaker Barry Jenkins. Before Moonlight (winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2017) there was Medicine for Melancholy, his first film.

Jenkins said:

I think the reason why people can really get into the film is because it’s so specific about reflecting the social reality of the time and the place of the city. That’s people’s way in, you know, to this black guy who is ranting about these things. They feel the city weighing in on him, and that’s what makes the movie spin. (Filmmaker Magazine)

Purple Rain

Next on Tuesday, February 18, is Prince's Purple Rain.  

Join us for a discussion after the 6:30pm showing led by Bon Vals, administrator for Facebook group Prince and the PNW Fam.

» Screens Tuesday, February 18. TRAILER & MORE INFO «

Daughters of the Dust

Last but not least, we are beyond excited to present Daughters of the Dust. In 1991, filmmaker Julie Dash made history when this film became the first feature film by an African American woman to have a wide release. Twenty-five years later, Beyoncé paid homage to the film through her breathtakingly lush visual album, Lemonade.

L: Still from Daughters of the Dust, 1991.	R: Still from Lemonade, 2016.

Dash on Daughters of the Dust:

I decided that I wanted to tell a story that was authentic to African American culture—authentic to the point where it was not like something you could turn on the television and see. I wanted it to be more like a foreign film and so deeply into the culture that it appeared to be foreign. (Sundance)

Screens with SKINFOLK: Sheree's Story directed by Tacoma filmmaker CHIMAERA. Filmmaker will be in attendance.

» Screens Tuesday, February 25. TRAILER & MORE INFO «

Classic Film Series

Join us on the 3rd Wednesday of every month for screenings of classic motion pictures.

Downtown 81

80 minutes of Jean-Michel Basquiat bounding around New York City in the 80s? Yeah, sign us up. Downtown 81 was shot in late 1980, was finally finished and released in 2000, and was restored and re-released this past October. Basquiat stars as a version of himself, "serving as a conduit to the day's downtown art and music world."

» Screens Wednesday, February 19. TRAILER & MORE INFO « 

---

TUESDAY FILM SERIES

2/4: To Sleep with Anger

Black History Month continued: Weird Elephant films