Thomas Allen
Editorial
So that was '99
Don
Letts
Producer
Lincia Daniel dances verbally with Don Letts
Blair
Witch
Project
weaves its magic
Sister I'm Sorry A highlight of the festival - get your VHS copy
Thomas
Allen Harris
crossing the boundaries
More than any other state, California is the land
of hyphenated peoples: Mexican-American, African-American, Afro-Caribbean,
to name just a few. A hyphen, though, is a type of border. It brings dissimilar
histories and visions together, forcing them to cross-cut and comment
on each other while reminding us of the distances traveled and the blood
of collisions. Thomas Allen Harris lives and works in San Diego, which
sits at the border between Mexico and the United States. For a black independent
filmmaker, this is an unlikely but more interesting location than Hollywood
or Los Angeles. Harris’s acclaimed visual work actually features borders
and crossroads. “Why be bound by ethnic, racial or even national audiences?”
he asks. “My life involves the crossing of boundaries and so should my
work”. In it, African, Caribbean and African American cultures, sexual
and Pan-African identities, and popular and experimental film traditions
meet.
Known for haunting images and innovative camera-work, Harris’s films challenge
the viewer with new visual and cultural possibilities: “Before I became
a filmmaker I studied science. So I have this leaning towards thinking
about systems and the inter-connectivity of things. For example, the disparate
experiences that shape my life: having lived in East Africa as a child,
growing up in a deeply religious Christian family of Pan-Africanists,
living in Europe, being a gay man and having become an artist and filmmaker.”
California too, is the home of hyphenated professions: actor-waiters,
novelist-plumbers, artist-academics and poet-activists are commonplace
here. Harris, only in his mid-thirties, has managed to wear out his hyphens
by the sheer weight of his productivity.
While working in public television, he produced award-winning current
affairs programs like Crisis: Who Will Do Science about the shortage of
blacks working in the sciences and Crisis In Urban Education about the
failures of the American educational system. His numerous awards include
a National Endowment for the Arts grant in 1994. As a television producer,
he was nominated twice for the coveted Emmy award.
Harris entered the world of independent film by producing, editing and
directing Splash, a short, which was aired on public television and screened
at international film festivals. His subsequent short Heaven, Earth and
Hell was included in the prestigious 1995 Biennial at the Whitney Museum
of American Art. Another early short Black Body was also widely shown
in art spaces, including London’s ICA. As a performer, he has appeared
in most of his films including his feature debut Vintage: Families of
Value, a meditation on the African American family seen through the perspective
of Gay and Lesbian siblings. It won the Golden Gate Award at the 1996
San Francisco International Film and Video Festival and the Best Documentary
award at the 20th Annual Atlanta Film and Video Festival, the 20th Toronto
International Film Festival and Italy’s Festival Cinema Africano. Vintage
was also screened at the 1997 Pan African Film Festival in Burkina Faso
and at England’s Sheffield Documentary Film Festival. Since the success
of his first feature, he has produced, directed and performed in other
notable experimental shorts. Encounter at the Intergalactic Cafe, set
at the San Diego/Mexican border, explores the relationship between spirit
possession and being possessed by the gaze of the European camera.
The video installation “Alchemy” (in collaboration with his brother, the
well-known photographer Lyle Ashton Harris) attempts to radically re-imagine
traditional and contemporary black Diaspora traditions and identities.
Afro (Is Just a Hairstyle): Notes on a Journey Through the African Diaspora
is a poetic quest for ‘Africa’ with the camera roving from Los Angeles
to Brazil to West Africa. All of these have appeared in prominent art
galleries like the Corcoran in Washington D.C. and the Long Beach Museum
of Art in California.
One must add photographer to this list of hyphens. And critic. And poet.
And one must acknowledge that his accomplishments in the space of ‘high
art’ and experimental film and video make a strong case for black participation
in that realm of cultural expression. “Experimental film and video has
in general offered more complexity around issues of black subjectivity,
experimentation and creativity compared to the offerings of mainstream
-Hollywood or industry-oriented product. It is in the spaces that cater
to ‘art house’ film, museums and alternative film/video festivals that
I've come in contact with black diasporic work - including Isaac Julien,
Maureen Blackwood, Ngozi Onuorah and Ousmane Sembene.” Although the limitations
of such spaces are obvious (fewer black people see the work and the economic
rewards are smaller), Harris is committed to it because it opens “a world
of ideas that haven't been available in mainstream film.” Yet one of his
next projects does flirt with the commercial mainstream:
“Generally,
we see a very narrow range within so called mainstream product in the
US - black or white. I personally find it generally insulting and reactionary.
But having said that, I am currently writing a script for an urban sex
comedy. But I'm entering this new venture as a money-making project and,
in some ways, free of the burden of personal investment that shaped some
of my earlier film projects. Perhaps it’s because I do not have illusions
about the nature of the industry, nor do I rely on it to make my films.”
The film he is currently editing promises to be the culmination of his
particular vision: “Based around my 1997 voyage to the city of Salvador
Da Bahia, That's My Face/E Minha Cara is a mytho-poetic search for the
African face of Brazil by an African-American filmmaker. What exactly
does Africa mean to me as a member of the African Diaspora – who has lived
in Africa, Europe and South America?” As he began filming random images,
faces and sites, the ‘centre’ of his global vision presented itself: “I
certainly didn't know that the film would ultimately take me to the continent
of Africa. It was actually Vintage that led me to Burkina Faso where it
was in competition for the Paul Robeson Prize. In the middle of filming
E Minha Cara, FESPACO sent me a round trip ticket from Brazil to the continent
of Africa and back. “I worked on the script for a while before remembering
meeting an Afro-Brazilian woman named Conception at one of the pan-African
salons at my mother's house in the Bronx. It was Conception who made me
promise that one day I would go to see the African face of Brazil. “But
to tell that story, I had to place people in the setting of that period
- the late 1960s and early 70s - the time when African Diaspora awareness
became popular in black communities. After my grandfather died, I went
through his archive in the Bronx because I knew that he had shot a lot
of Super -8 during this period. After scouring the basement I found 2
1/2 hours of Super 8mm footage documenting this period. So in a sense,
I am continuing his legacy as That's My Face was also shot entirely on
Super 8mm film. Despite his success with Vintage he still found it extremely
difficult to secure funding. “Most funders don't believe it can be done
even after Vintage - which was made in a similar vein. They only applaud
your accomplishments after you've completed the project and everyone loves
it. Principally, its been through competitive university grants, that
I was able to launch and produce E Minha Cara.” The university system
may provide support for his independent film work, but what does this
say about the general state of black independent film? “I'm not sure what
independent film is these days” he says. “Most films that fall under that
rubric these days are made with budgets above 5 million dollars and many
have a relationship with the studio system. Also, many independents are
orienting their films exclusively to get that Hollywood deal so they don't
have to be independent anymore. Independent was co-opted a long time ago.”
Considering the state of black film in the United States, this truth has
divided the filmmaking community. More and more ‘independent’ filmmakers
use their films as calling cards for a career in the mainstream. “I don't
see anything wrong with going for money but that in and of itself has
never been the primary reason or motivation for working in this medium.
Many people - particularly black folks who do get deals from a studio
- are only allowed to make only one film and no more. Generally, they
don't have the leveraging power to make final cut.” And the future? “I
will always be involved in making low-budget features and exploring the
alternatives to the studio system - in terms of financing, production,
and distribution. Digital video, the Internet and the opening of television
channels, offer new and exciting possibilities to be independent and economically
prosperous.”
(c)Black Filmmaker
Publications 1999:
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