Dir. Kasi Lemmons
1997, USA, 108 min
4K Restoration
Summer heats up in rural Louisiana beside Eve’s Bayou, 1962, as the Batiste family tries to survive the secrets they’ve kept and the betrayals they’ve endured.
Plays with:
Shea, by NASRA
Dir. Effy Adar, 2020, Canada, 3 min
A family displaced by greed searches for a new home in a foreign place. As they explore they discover pieces of themselves; old and new. “Shea” celebrates what has always remained in Black/African peoples, an innate sense of home, luxury and interconnectedness.
Understanding what it means to encompass various parts of our identity through the act of remembering is one that is often complicated by the loss of generational knowledge. This consciousness is often passed down by ancestors but can be removed or erased from certain communities. The prioritization of western ways of mythology for the Black diaspora is asking of us to reanalyze what it means for the diaspora to have access to their autonomy of self-actualization of spirituality. The films in this series examine what it means to recollect histories and the ways we can conceptualize mythology.
Reimagining the Black Diaspora: Spirituality, Mythology and Collective Memory is generously sponsored by IATSE 856 Manitoba.
Eve’s Bayou treads across a fragile and complex emotional landscape, and Lemmons is exceptionally adept at creating characters who are simultaneously despicable and lovable.
– Cynthia Joyce, Salon
All of these moments unfold in a film of astonishing maturity and confidence; Eve’s Bayou, one of the very best films of the year, is the debut of its writer and director, Kasi Lemmons.
– Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
