2017 South Side Film Festival kick-off with short film, Cry of Jazz (1959)
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BLACK WORLD CINEMA | SOUTH SIDE PROJECTIONS | HYDE PARK ARTCENTER
Present A Pre-Festival Screening Event Introducing
The 1st Annual South Side Film Festival
Celebrating Films Made on the South Side & South Side Filmmakers
2:30pm, Sept 30, 2017 • Hyde Park ArtCenter 5020 S Cornell Ave, Chicago, IL
Cry of Jazz (1959), 34 min
Director: Edward 0. Bland
“a historic and fascinating film that comments on racism and the appropriation of jazz by those who fail to understand its artistic and cultural origins.” – Library of Congress
Come to the Hyde Park Art Center to celebrate the 1st Annual South Side Film Festival, taking place October 6-8 at Studio Movie Grill Chatham, and meet festival founder, Michelle Kennedy. Join us in viewing the historic short film The Cry of Jazz, made in 1959 in Hyde Park by the late Edward O. Bland, a University of Chicago alum and film music composer.
The Cry of Jazz was selected in 2010 for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant.” An early and influential example of African-American independent filmmaking, director Ed Bland made it with the help of more than 60 volunteer crew members. This docudrama intercuts live footage of Sun Ra with scenes of life in Chicago’s black neighborhoods and a meeting of interracial artists and intellectuals engaged in debate around the nature of Jazz’s origins and its future. The Cry of Jazz argues that black life in America shares a structural identity with jazz music.