Curator Karen Alexander presents a trio of shorts that resonate with bell hooks's seminal classic collection of essays on film, Reel To Real: Race, Class and Sex at the Movies including a rare showing of Julie Dash’s Illusions (1982), a critique of Hollywood history and an attempt to subvert that very history by calling attention to the lack of an African-American presence in Hollywood during the era of World War II which resonates today.

Illusions Dir: Julie Dash USA 1982 34mins

Julie Dash (Daughters of The Dust) explores race and representation in World War II-era Hollywood through the story of a Black movie studio executive passing as white and the African-American singer she hires to dub the voice of a white actress.

Reassamblage Dir: Trinh T. Minh-ha 1982 USA 40mins

Women are the focus but not the object of Trinh T. Minh-ha’s influential first film, a complex visual study of the women of rural Senegal.

The Attendant Dir: Isaac Julian UK 1993 8mins

A museum devoted to the history of slavery becomes a hotbed of queer, sadomasochistic fantasy in this provocative reflection on memory and desire.

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