To celebrate Black History Month, the inaugural NODA FILM FESTIVAL is focusing on great-but-underexposed African American films and filmmakers. We’re screening many critically acclaimed masterpieces that you won’t find anywhere else.


Mellow Mushroom pizza, cash bar, and popcorn will be available.

Sunday, Feb. 26
HIP HOP 101

4:30 pm - Style Wars
(1983, Tony Silver)


“If you want to know what hip hop is really all about, see a film called Style Wars.”

– KRS 1

Filmed in 1982, this seminal BBC documentary should be required viewing for all future MCs, DJs, and B-Boys. It’s the story of the graffiti artists who used the New York City subway system as a collective canvas for their hopes, dreams, and frustrations. While government officials focus their efforts on removing these visual explosions from the urban landscape, artists get busy giving birth to a cultural revolution that can never be silenced.

69 minutes.

6:00 pm -The Freshest Kids: A History of the B-Boy
(2002, Israel)


“Hip hop is beautiful because it always challenges America’s notion of what it believes young, disenfranchised people to be.” – Mos Def

Fighting to restore the respect due to those who gave birth to the B-Boy movement, The Freshest Kids makes its case with jaw-dropping footage of legends like the Nigga Twins, Spy, Crazy Legs, and Frosty Freeze. It traces the surprising history of breakdancing, from its origins in the early 1970s up through the present. Viewers beware: this movie’s raw power is enough to get you scouting back alleys for cardboard again.

96 minutes.

8:00 pm - Krush Groove
(1985, Michael Schultz)



“You don’t see Lionel Richie workin’ at no car wash.” – Rev. Run

Maybe not, but you don’t see him getting slapped around by two thugs with Jheri-curled mullets, either. Be that as it may, it’s easy to suspend disbelief with Krush Groove, a grave warning to hip hoppers who are even thinking about selling out to The Man. Featuring energetic live performances by Run DMC, Kurtis Blow, LL Cool J, Sheila E and The Fat Boys, this fictional look at the origins of Def Jam Records is like one big episode of “I Love the 80s,” right down to the Kangols, dukie chains, and, of course, Adidas.

97 minutes

Monday, Feb. 27
GREAT BLACK DIRECTORS

7:00 pm - To Sleep with Anger
(1990, Charles Burnett)


“Charles Burnett is the least well-known great American film maker.” – NY Press

“The most gifted and important black filmmaker this country has ever had.”
– Chicago Reader

To Sleep With Anger begins as the story of a mischievous man from the Deep South who visits his well-to-do friends in Los Angeles and refuses to leave. But it becomes much more than that as families start to unravel, generations clash, and voodoo comes into play. Featuring the best performance of Danny Glover’s career, this overlooked masterpiece was selected by the Chicago Reader as one of the Top 100 American films of all time.

101 minutes

9:00 pm - Do the Right Thing
(1989, Spike Lee)



“Comes closer to reflecting the current state of race relations in America than any movie of our time.” – Roger Ebert

In 1989, Driving Miss Daisy won the Academy Award for Best Film. Do The Right Thing wasn’t even nominated. For that reason alone, Oscars should be treated as nothing more than shiny doorstops. Despite its gut-wrenching subject matter, Spike Lee’s crowning achievement about simmering tensions during a long, hot summer day in Brooklyn remains as fresh, funny, and fast-paced as it was when it was first released.

120 minutes

Tuesday, Feb. 28
ONE-TIME INDIE WONDERS

7:00 pm - Daughters of the Dust
(1991, Julie Dash)


“One of the 50 Most Important Independent Films Ever Made.”
–Filmmaker’s Magazine

This cult classic is the haunting story a Gullah family preparing to depart the Sea Islands of Georgia for the mainland. Tired of the backwardness of island life, these folks want to experience the glories of mainstream society, even if it means leaving their old culture and religion behind. But as the family’s matriarch predicts, Africa isn’t just a place…it’s a state of mind. This visually stunning film is cinema’s only equivalent to the powerful and luscious fiction of Toni Morrison and her contemporaries.

112 minutes.

9:00 pm - Chameleon Street
(1992, Wendell B. Harris)


“I think, therefore I scam.” – William Douglas Street

Hailed by the L.A. Times as one of the Top 10 Films of the 1990s, Chameleon Street is the true story of scam artist William Douglas Street, who managed to impersonate a Time Magazine reporter, a surgeon, a Yale undergrad, a lawyer, and even a Frenchman before landing in jail. Wendell Harris’ witty and sardonic film turns the idea of keeping it real on its head and introduces one of black cinema’s most unique protagonists. Rarely seen in theaters and scarcely found in video stores, the NoDa Film Festival is proud to present this sorely neglected Sundance Grand Prize Winner.

94 minutes