Regeneration: Black Cinema, 1898–1971
February 4 – June 23, 2024
Detroit Institute of Arts
5200 Woodward Ave, Detroit, MI

In cooperation with the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures…

Regeneration: Black Cinema, 1898–1971 honors the legacy of African American filmmakers and actors from the dawn of cinema, through the golden age, and into the aftermath of the Civil Rights Movement. Inspired by and named after an independent 1923 all-Black-cast movie, Regeneration seeks to revive lost or forgotten films, filmmakers, and performers for a contemporary audience.

Explore — or revisit — a bittersweet part of American cinematic history, lost in plain sight and not necessarily by accident. In concurrence with the exhibit, The Detroit Film Theatre (Why, look! It’s right next door!) will be showing a selection of 20^th century African American cinema gratis throughout the month of February.

The DFT’s selection for this weekend…

• The Flying Ace
  USA, 1926, directed by Richard E. Norman
  Friday, February 2, 7:30pm
  …the charismatic Laurence Criner stars as Captain Billy Stokes, a World War I pilot who returns home to find both romance and a plot involving a gang of payroll thieves. The fact that Black Americans were not permitted to serve as pilots in the US Armed Forces in 1926 did not stop writer-director Richard Norman from putting a valiant Black aviator at the center of his film.
  • This remarkable film was preserved by the Library of Congress, and will be presented with a live score composed and performed by Alvin Waddles (piano), Marion Hayden (bass) and Vincent Chandler (trombone).

• Harlem On The Prairie
  USA, 1937, directed by Sam Newfield
  Saturday, Feb 3, 7:00pm
  …[Detroit-born] singer Herb Jeffries makes his cinematic debut as a strapping young cowpoke who comes to the rescue of a traveling medicine show battling outlaws for buried treasure.[…] Filmed at a Black-owned ranch in California’s Apple Valley, the film also includes Spencer Williams (director of The Blood of Jesus) and doo-wop quartet the Four Tones.

• Reform School (restored)
  USA, 1939, directed by Leo C. Popkin
  Sunday Matineée, Feb 4, 2:00pm
  Louise Beavers plays a probation officer who comes to the defense of young inmate Freddie (Reginald Fenderson) and his pals (the Harlem Tuff Kids) who are subject to constant harassment at a corrupt reform school. The film’s director, Leo Popkin, is one of the three co-founders of the Million Dollar Productions company that produced and distributed films for Black audiences. Its other co-founders were Popkin’s brother Harry and writer-producer-actor Ralph Cooper, “The Dark Gable.”
  • This screening will be introduced by special guest Rhea Combs, Director of Curatorial Affairs, Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery and co-curator of Regeneration: Black Cinema, 1898–1971 at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.

The Regenerations exhibit and all DFT films are gratis with general admission. General museum admission is gratis for residents of Macomb, Oakland and Wayne counties. For further information, please call (313) 833-7900 during visiting hours or just point yer browser to https://dia.org already!