Activist Lens: Bev Grant & Newsreel Films

Block Cinema welcomes lens-based artist and activist Bev Grant for a screening of two films that showcase the range of her artistic and political practices. As an early member of the iconic Newsreel Collective founded in New York City in 1967 and known as the “propaganda arm of the New Left,” Bev Grant contributed to key radical documentary films that chronicled the wave-making social movements of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Two such works made in 1971, JANIE'S JANIE and EL PUEBLO SE LEVANTA (THE PEOPLE ARE RISING) observe and embody the leftist struggles of the time, from the bold personal storytelling integral to the women's movement to the liberatory social organizing of the Young Lords in East Harlem.

Following the screening Bev Grant joins us in person for a conversation about activism-focused filmmaking. Additional details to come.

Program includes:
JANIE'S JANIE (1971, 25 min, B&W, Newsreel)

"Produced by The Newsreel collective, JANIE'S JANIE is an extraordinary document of the early 1970's women's movement. In this personal documentary, Jane Giese, a working class woman in Newark, comes to realize that she has to take control of her own life after years of physical and mental abuse. As Janie says, "First I was my father's Janie, then I was my Charlie's Janie, now I'm Janie's Janie."
The "personal" aspect of the film was unusual for early Newsreel, and its very existence resulted from gender issue struggles within the collective itself. It is a document of a time and its issues, and of the efforts of feminists to give creative visual form to their concerns. Using both interviews and verité material, it is one of the more complex Newsreel films. Principal collaborators were: Geri Ashur, Peter Barton, Marilyn Mulford and Stephanie Palewski, with music by Bev Grant and Laura Liben." -- TWN
EL PUEBLO SE LEVANTA (1971, 42 min, B&W, Newsreel)

"In the late '60s, conditions for Puerto Ricans in the US reached the boiling point. Faced with racial discrimination, deficient community services, and poor education and job opportunities, Puerto Rican communities began to address these injustices by using direct action. This film focuses on the community of East Harlem, capturing the compassion and militancy of the Young Lords as they implemented their own health, educational, and public assistance programs and fought back against social injustice. An excellent portrayal of inner city organizing in the late 60s." -- TWN

Films courtesy of Third World Newsreel
Presented in conjunction with the Block Museum exhibition , on view from September 18 - December 1, 2024, and the cinema series Films by Women/Chicago ’74.

Bev Grant is a labor and social activist, feminist, singer-songwriter, photographer, filmmaker and 2017 Joe Hill Award winner from the Labor Heritage Foundation for her work as a cultural worker, as well as the 2017 winner of the ASCAP Foundation’s Jay Gorney award for her song “We Were There.” In July 1917, Bev began scanning images from photo negatives she shot as a radical photojournalist in the late 1960s, including some iconic photos of the early radical women’s movement, the Young Lords Party, the Black Panther Party, and many other movement struggles.

Presented in conjunction with the Block Museum exhibition , on view from September 18 - December 1, 2024, and the cinema series Films by Women/Chicago ’74.

Host or Publisher The Block Museum of Art