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Doors 6:30 p.m.; Event 7 p.m.
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Click here to learn more about accessibility at the Tomorrow Theater. 

This event is free as part of PAM’s Free First Thursday, thanks to generous support provided by Art Bridges Foundation’s Access for All program. 

THE EXPERIENCE

Join guest programmers Ariella Tai and Tracy Kernell as they present the 2023 short film Quiet As It’s Kept, directed by Ja’Tovia Gary, followed by the 1996 feature film Naked Acts, directed by Bridgett M. Davis. Together, these films are two in a legacy of multi-generational and multivalent Black feminist storytelling centered on issues of self-identity, agency and healing for Black women and girls. Each of these films reflects a deeply citational practice, drawing from cinematic and literary traditions to build their own unique contributions. This double feature is a call to action — asking us to actively shift conversations around Black women’s filmmaking from a false premise that the films don’t exist yet to more pointed discussions around preservation, distribution, access and, lastly, to whom work needs to be legible in order to be valued.  Informational zines about the films researched, designed and printed by Ariella and Tracy will be made available to all attendees. 

ON SCREEN: Quiet As It’s Kept and Naked Acts

Quiet As It’s Kept

2023. Directed by Ja’Tovia Gary. Runtime: 26 minutes. 

A contemporary cinematic response to The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison’s first novel. An evocative illustration of the everyday particulars of colourism and its ravaging effects on the intramural, the film collages together vintage Hollywood, direct animation, original Super 8 and 16mm film footage, and repurposed social media clips. The film considers questions around the book’s themes of internalized and externalized anti-blackness in contemporary culture.

Naked Acts

1996. Directed by Bridgett M. Davis. Runtime: 87 minutes. Rated R.

Celebrated on its release in 1996 as a major contribution to the renaissance of Black independent filmmaking in the 1990s, Naked Acts, directed by Bridgett M. Davis, was largely unseen until it’s recent restoration, championed by the creator of the Black Film Archive and President of Milestone Films, Maya S. Cade. 

Beautiful aspiring actor Cicely (Jake-Ann Jones) has just landed her first major role, but there’s a big problem: it requires a nude scene. Her mother was a Blaxploitation star known for her sex appeal, while Cicely is a survivor of sexual assault with life-long body image issues, all of which has left her with a strong aversion to disrobing in public. Now, with the support of her boyfriend Joel (Ron Cephas Jones), she attempts to get past her fear.

Together, these films are two in a legacy of multi-generational and multivalent Black feminist storytelling centered on issues of self-identity, agency and healing for Black women and girls. Each of these films reflects a deeply citational practice, drawing from cinematic and literary traditions to build their own unique contributions. This double feature is a call to action — asking us to actively shift conversations around Black women’s filmmaking from a false premise that the films don’t exist yet to more pointed discussions around preservation, distribution, access and, lastly, to whom work needs to be legible in order to be valued. 

This screening will be free to the public. Informational zines about the films researched, designed and printed by co-programmers ariella tai and Tracy Kernell will be made available to all attendees.

ON STAGE: Ariella Tai and Tracy Kernell

Ariella Tai – Ariella Tai (b. 1987) is an experimental filmmaker, educator, and programmer from the land of the Lenape people (Queens, NY), currently living on Multnomah land (Portland, OR). In line with the Afrodiasporic tradition of sampling as a means of transmutation, tai glitches popular representations of Black women and queer people within the cinematic canon to render visible alternative social arrangements. Through digital and analog manipulation, tai explores Black feminist frameworks that identify rupture as a generative filmic space. tai’s works have screened at Anthology Film Archives, Los Angeles Film Forum, and Northwestern University, as well as been included in exhibitions at Tufts, Portland Art Museum, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, and the Pinothek der Moderne. The artist has participated in residencies with Alfred University’s Institute for Electronic Arts, Signal Culture, and Portland Institute for Contemporary Art’s Creative Exchange Lab.

Tracy Kernell – Tracy Kernell is a filmmaker and artist working with still and moving image to explore the intersections of Black vernacular culture, music, and archival practices. He considers the relationship between popular sound and image with what he experiences as interior, domestic, or, *ours.*