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In collaboration with the Center for African and African American Studies and other members of the Black community, CU Boulder’s celebrates Black History Month with a selection of films that highlight Black culture through cinema. 

“Each film will be introduced by that title's sponsor and covers a wide range of topics, genres, styles and time periods, with the intent of introducing new audiences to these powerful films that too often are overlooked,” said Jason Phelps, program director of the International Film Series.

91��Ƭ�� the International Film Series

The International Film Series is Boulder's first arthouse series and has been locally programmed since 1941. The goal has always been to bring underrepresented films to new audiences, as well as celebrating cinema's legacy on our culture with screenings that don't always fit neatly into one category. It is also one of few places in the U.S. where the latest digital projection systems and reel-to-reel 35mm film projectors coexist peacefully to both honor the rich legacy of the past, the present and the future.

Black History Month film selections

A total of 10 films will be shown as part of the series, and students, faculty, staff and the Boulder community are invited to attend. All of the films will be shown in Muenzinger Auditorium on campus. Tickets are required and are available only at the door on the day of the showing.

  Feb. 15    7:30 p.m.
“Through cinematographer Mark Schwartzbard's lens, The Photograph feels like a gentle throwback to romantic movies that left their audiences in good spirits as they filed out of the theater.”

  Feb. 21    7:30 p.m.
This 2009 action comedy film stars Michael Jai White, Tommy Davidson and Salli Richardson, and is a parody of and homage to the blaxploitation genre and its era.

  Feb. 22    7:30 p.m.
In this 1984 film, Charlie Banks (Nate Hardman) “views his chronic unemployment as a kind of spiritual trial. But day work and selling a few catfish can't sustain a family of five. While his wife Andais (Kaycee Moore) works to support them with dignity, Charlie finds comfort for his wounded sense of manhood in an affair that threatens his marriage and family.”

  Feb. 23    7:30 p.m.
This 2022 film follows Mamie Till-Bradley as she seeks justice and exposes the racism that led to the murder of her son, Emmitt Till, in 1955. Special introduction by CAAAS Director Reiland Rabaka.

  Feb. 24   7:30 p.m.
This 1971film—written, directed, produced, edited and starred in by Melvin Van Peebles—features music by Earth, Wind & Fire. The film's “incendiary politics are matched by Van Peebles's revolutionary style, in which jagged jump cuts, kaleidoscopic superimpositions and psychedelic sound design come together in a sustained howl of rage and defiance.”

  Feb. 25   7:30 p.m.
“With his rousingly entertaining directorial debut, Sidney Poitier, alongside actor-producer Harry Belafonte, helped rewrite the history of the western, bringing Black heroes to a genre in which they had always been sorely underrepresented.”

  Feb. 26   2 p.m.
In this 1980 film, “operating in defiance of the racially exclusive Hollywood studio system, novelist Ishmael Reed, director Bill Gunn and a renegade group of artists banded together to film a ‘meta soap opera’ about the struggles of a working class African American couple in New York City.”