Frame By Frame

Jessie Maple, the first Black woman to join the International Photographers of Motion Picture & Television Union, talked about her career with Dr. Terri Francis in January of 2020 during her campus visit. Her 1989 film Twice as Nice, which screened at the IULMIA, follows twins Caren and Camilla Parker, both star players on a college women’s basketball team energized by the prospect of a first female pick in the upcoming “MBA” d...

NASA defines a supernova as “the last hurrah” of a dying star. But what do supernovas and Black leading women in Hollywood have in common? That’s what Philana Payton, doctoral candidate for Cinema and Media Studies at USC is searching to answer in her dissertation, “Celestial Bodies: Black Women, Hollywood, and the Fallacy of Stardom.”

Payton visited the IU campus this past February to present Claudine during the ‘Love! I’m in Love...

Jamaican filmmaker Esther Figueroa visited the BFC/A in the Spring of 2019. The visit was a part of the program, ‘Black Sun White Moon: Exploring Black Cinematic Imaginations of Space.’ The film series included Fly Me to the Moon, Figueroa’s feature-length documentary about the natural material of bauxite in the Caribbean that have been mined as an essential component of advanced space travel. Esther Figueroa and Dr. Terri Francis ...

As a part of the Before Representation series in Fall 2019, Dr. TreaAndrea Russworm, Associate Professor at University of Massachusetts Amherst, presented her work on race and video games at the IU Media School. Dr. Russworm’s work spans across digital cultural studies to postmodern studies. A natural storyteller since childhood, the professor envisioned herself becoming a writer first until someone told her that she could get a Ph...