SFIFF: Black Power Mix Tape

~ Lincoln Spector

Managed to get to one movie at the Kabuki today—the last one I’ll see there at this year’s festival.

B+ The Black Power Mixtape 1967–1975. The nature of the civil rights movement changed dramatically in the mid-to-late 1960’s, and this American/Swedish blackpowerdocumentary tracks the black power movement from Stokely Carmichael’s heyday until heroin ravaged Harlem. The film’s Swedish origin is something of a gimmick. Most of the footage consists of news footage shot by Swedish crews for Swedish television. Occasionally we get the original narration (with English subtitles, of course). The bulk of the narration is made up from recent interviews with African-American activists, and the point of view is definitely theirs. The result is an intriguing and informative overview, if considerably one-sided. Little attention is given to the bad decisions, reverse racism, and raging sexism that warped the movement.

I saw the last festival screening of the film. IFC Films has picked it up for release.

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Published by Lincoln Spector

Lincoln Spector writes about cinema, technology, and cinema technology. From 1986 through 2008, he wrote Gigglebytes, the first technology-oriented humor column. From 1977 through 2016, he wrote PC World's Answer Line column and blog.