Naked Acts 

(1996, 87m) dir Bridgett M. Davis, w/ Jake-Ann Jones, Ron Cephas Jones, Renee Cox, Patricia DeArcy. Daughter of a Blaxploitation star and granddaughter of a famous stage actress, Cicely (Jones) lands her first movie role, but is furious to discover that her part includes a nude scene. Refusing to do the scene, Cicely challenges the director and confronts her past trauma in this wickedly funny and emotionally poignant indie gem set in the Black art world of New York City in the mid-1990s.

Shot in just over three months in 1994, Naked Acts was the first feature to be written, produced, directed, and self-distributed theatrically by an African American woman. Preserved by the Black Film Center and Archive at Indiana University in Bloomington and newly restored in 4K, this gorgeous film has been widely unseen for too long.

*DCP courtesy of Kino Lorber. This screening was made possible by the University of Minnesota Imagine Fund.

7:00 $8