The Black List

Director: Timothy Greenfield-Sanders
Cast: Chris Rock, Al Sharpton, Zane, Colin Powell, Richard D. Parsons, Lou Gossett, Jr., Faye Wattleton, Sean Combs, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Suzan-Lori Parks
Runtime: 90 minutes
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screening in: Special Screenings

Screening Times

5:30 PM, Saturday March 8th - Alamo Ritz 2
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5:30 PM, Monday March 10th - Alamo Ritz 2
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5:30 PM, Friday March 14th - Alamo Ritz 2
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everything subject to change

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Synopsis:
The traditional definition of the phrase 'blacklist' has been rendered obsolete by the documentary 'The Black List,' which seeks to bury the negative weight of the term by allowing African-Americans to provide an up-to-the-minute answer to the grim origins of 'blacklist.' In a film that works as series of living portraits, twenty prominent African Americans of various professions, disciplines and backgrounds offer their own stories and insights on the struggles, triumphs and joys of black life in this country and manage to re-define 'blacklist' for a new century in the process. The film is presented as a series of vignettes Ð a kind of living portraiture Ð in which the subjects address the camera directly as they tell their stories. The film was directed by the renowned portrait photographer and filmmaker, Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, from a series of interviews conducted by Elvis Mitchell. Mitchell is never seen on camera or heard, thus allowing the subjects' own voices to remain the focus. The actual title of the film itself, 'The Black List', was conceived of by Mitchell as an answer to the constant taint applied to the word 'black' in Western culture. Those interviewed for the film come from a vast and different collection of disciplines that draw from the worlds of the arts, sports, politics; the group assembled features luminaries such as Toni Morrison, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Vernon Jordan, Chris Rock, Richard D. Parsons, Zane and the Rev. Al Sharpton. Their tales of their lives begin with the personal, and move into an area of larger social repercussion, as the weight of their accomplishment on this country and world come into focus. 'The Black List' is more than an enumeration of obstacles overcome Ð it's a singular view of America from a type of insight and perspective rarely seen on screen in a way that emphasizes the elegance and determination of the subjects.

Director's Bio:
As a photographer, Timothy Greenfield-Sanders is highly regarded for his strikingly intimate portraits of world leaders and major cultural figures. As a filmmaker, he is best known for his documentary about the legendary musician, Lou Reed.Greenfield-Sanders' film career started in the mid-1970's when he attended the American Film Institute in Los Angeles. It was at AFI that he fell in love with portraiture while taking photographs for the school of visiting dignitaries including Alfred Hitchcock, Bette Davis and Ingmar Bergman. Greenfield-Sanders got lighting and posing tips from the masters and after receiving his MFA degree, switched to portraiture full time.Greenfield-Sanders moved back to NYC where he started to photograph the art world (his undergraduate degree from Columbia University was in Art History). In 1999, twenty years later, Greenfield-Sanders exhibited 700 portraits of artists, dealers, critics, collectors and curators. Full sets of all 700 of these images are now in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York and The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. In the mid-1990's Greenfield-Sanders returned to filmmaking with his first film, "Lou Reed: Rock and Roll Heart". He produced and directed this feature for PBS' American Masters Series. The film premiered in the U.S. at Sundance and in Europe at The Berlin Film Festival. The film won a 1998 Grammy Award.In 2004, Greenfield-Sanders produced and directed "Thinking XXX" for HBO, a documentary based on the making of his best-selling book, 'XXX: 30 Porn-Star Portraits'.To date, fifteen books and catalogues have been published on Greenfield-Sanders' portraiture, including a monograph in 2001 and most recently, 'Movie Stars', a collection of portraits of actors and film directors.Timothy Greenfield-Sanders is a contributing photographer at Vanity Fair. In 2005, he was profiled on the American television show "60 Minutes".