America

In 2014, the MoMA in New York restored and showed an unpublished silent film from 1913: Lime Kiln Club Field Day, directed by famous Bahamian entertainer Bert Williams. The cast was entirely African-American actors, a rarity for that era. Fascinated by this cinematic rediscovery, African-American director Garrett Bradley decided to trace the history of black cinema from Lime Kiln Club Field Day to the present. According to research conducted by the Library of Congress, at least 70% of silent films made in the United States between 1912 and 1929 have disappeared. It’s likely many were made by African American directors, for an African American audience. In America Bradley tries to bridge this historical gap through archival materials and documentary strategies. In thirty minutes of black and white images, the director intertwines scenes from Bert Williams’s silent film with twelve of his own short films, inspired by African American historical figures who’ve become “invisible”. The soundtrack was composed by Trevor Mathison, a founding member of the Black Audio Film Collective. The film was made for the Whitney Biennial 2019.