Life Within the Lens Celebrates Black Filmmaking

Last night, as I am wont to do, I went to the Music Box Theatre. There, a programme in its seventh iteration titled Life Within the Lens took place. It was staged by the Chicago-based programmer and curator Tyler Balentine, who previously presented his Melanin, Roots, and Culture series in 2024 and 2025, which featured Life Within the Lens as an accompanying shorts block. This year, not only did he stage this shorts section, he also began a weekly series at Facets of Black shorts entitled Sunday’s Best, which will have its final showing on March 1.

His assemblage of seven shorts in this year’s Life Within the Lens filled the 700+ seat theater at the Music Box, where a sea of Black folks celebrated cinematic offerings, whether through the origins of their creators or the place of their setting, with ties to Chicago. These screened works leaped effortlessly across genres to tackle heady topics, often with light-hearted flair. So, as I settled into my seat with a plate of àkàrà, jollof rice, chicken suya kabob, doused with a spicy peri-peri sauce, all from Dozzy’s Grill, a local West African restaurant which catered the night, I took in a bevy of sincerely crafted stories that reminded of the potentiality of Black cinema.  

The programme began with Jacob Sutton’s “BLK IS TIME/WAKE UP,” an abstract piece that combines footage of dance, often slowed to a crawl, matched with an energetic lyrical piece of poetry. Filmed at the Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago, the lo-fi short witnesses a lone dancer, dressed in a white button-up shirt, moving through an amber-lit space with sharp intensity. Sometimes Sutton’s use of time lapse becomes so intense, it feels as though our protagonist will simply spin out of frame. Bending time to even greater effect is the use of The Last Poets’s 1971 track “Black is Chant/Black is Time.” Those verses’ active, often kinetic rhythm, provides a rebellious backbeat to the honed movements of the protagonist, intimating the pulsations of Black life. 

That agile short transitions into Sarah Oberholtzer’s more meditative work “We Call Each Other.” In that film, which is the first of a three-part series the director has conceived, a father (Ronald L. Conner) of three brings liquid fertilizer for a garden he maintains in his apartment. One day, however, his fertilizer goes missing. He initially suspects the local community garden might’ve taken his supply until he discovers that a young man, with equal horticultural ambitions, might’ve swiped it instead. While you might expect the film to take a vengeful turn, it thankfully doesn’t. Instead, Oberholtzer invests the piece with an uncommon sense of empathy that exemplifies the quiet understanding required to uplift friends, neighbors, and even strangers. 

That sense of allowing grace to unlikely figures also takes place in the programme’s third film: Phil Lee’s satirical short “Street Magnate.” The simple premise sees a plainly dressed Cory (Edward Williams III) walking into an office building housing Layment Investors. He asks to speak to the owner and is summarily dismissed by the receptionist. Rather than be deterred, he steadfastly sees his way in to talk to three white employees. I don’t want to spoil the turn that occurs after this point, but suffice it to say, it’s not just a ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ situation. It’s also an instance of subversion that smartly re-works the racist perceptions of Black men into a punchline that’s equal parts funny and eloquent. 

The programme continued emphasizing passion via Sanicole’s metaphysical odyssey “The Bet.” Here, Blue (Vincent Fenner Jr), a wayward teenager gunned down after trying to rob a convenience store, becomes a spirit alongside the sage Kit (Church Lockett). Through various acts of kindness, the latter, despite being jaded about humanity, has tried to make his way from this purgatory into heaven. Blue, the newbie, who still believes in the inherent goodness of man, makes a wager with Kit to prove that people can be saved. If Blue wins, then Kit must show him how to transport from place to place. If Kit wins, then Blue must sever contact with him. Apart from its charitable premise, this film thrives on Fenner and Lockett’s easygoing comedic chemistry, which turns the afterlife on Chicago’s streets into a poignant tale about brotherhood.  

Intuitively, the ghostly tale of “The Bet” leads us into Eve Wright’s equally phantasmagorical story “The Scorekeeper.” In this genre picture, one can feel shades of Jordan Peele’s “US” when a Black woman named Jade (Bri McDonald), who’s preparing for a first date, is followed by a Black female apparition… aka the Scorekeeper (Alexis Queen), who’s lugging an AV club television behind her. During the oblique film, difficult memories rise to the surface via the Scorekeeper’s poking and prodding through cryptic questions directed at Jade. This speculative format also reminds one of Rungano Nyoni’s “On Becoming a Guinea Fowl,” which also hoped to parse past traumas through metaphor. The sense of mood is equal to the task, fashioning a narrative that doesn’t immediately give itself over to easy answers. 

At this point, I’m going to go out of turn by mentioning Luchina Fisher’s uplifting sports documentary “Team Dream.” The final film in the programme, though it’s not the last one I’m writing about, lovingly captures its two subjects: Ann E. Smith and Madeline Murphy Rabb. Both are training for the  2022 National Senior Games. Smith was the first African-American woman to win a statewide election in Illinois, earning a spot on the University of Illinois Board of Trustees. Rabb was Executive Director of the Chicago Office of Fine Arts. Both women, now in their 80s, took up swimming for several reasons. First and foremost, because the activity fulfills them. Secondly, they want to disprove the stereotype that Black people don’t swim. Fisher tells their story simply yet effectively, giving us a full overview of their prodigious backgrounds and showing the intense effort they put into a sport that brings out their competitive fire. 

Of all the films featured in the programme, however, the most thrilling might be Shiloh Tumo Washington’s “Bailey’s Blues.” A black and white shot wonder, the film, as the director explained in a Q&A, is inspired by a longer, un-produced feature the director intends to make. When that feature didn’t come to fruition, he decided to craft this documentary about the protagonist. The result is stellar and powerful.

The fictional Marion Bailey (Namir Smallwood) is a jazz stand-up bass player, who’s being interviewed by a white French journalist (Pierre Lucas) in 1962 about his role as a Black man in this musical genre. Rather than give this gazy reporter some eloquent sob story about the plight of artistry, he volleys a series of bristling retorts whose frankness electrifies every moment. This honesty commentary about systemic racism can’t be looked away from, particularly because of Smallwood’s unflinching relationship to the camera and the material. Once more, the film is also incredibly shot, matching the style of 1960s French documentaries down to the subtitles. I beg of someone, please give Washington the means necessary to realize his vision. Because what’s on display here is clearly incredible.      

from Roger Ebert https://ift.tt/hqk1FL5