Black on Screen: Celebrating Lisa Cortés

Join us for a celebration of director and producer Lisa Cortés! From eye-popping shorts about world-renowned Black artists, to documentaries tracking the rise of Black astronauts at NASA or the explosive career of Little Richard, Cortés explores the barriers and breakthroughs that define the African-American experience. Reflecting the bold diversity of Cortés’s subjects, this program will screen shorts and feature films directed and/or produced by the filmmaker. These enlightening films celebrate hidden histories, historic movements, and luminary figures across Black culture. A talkback will follow with Lisa Cortés and Denise Greene, Director of Programs at Black Public Media.

2:00PM - 2:26PM

Happy Birthday To A Beautiful Woman, 2012, directed by Mickalene Thomas, executive produced by Lisa Cortés 26 min

Happy Birthday to a Beautiful Woman is a celebration of award-winning artist Mickalene Thomas's mother and muse, Sandra Bush, the subject of numerous photographs and paintings by the artist.

2:26PM - 2:49PM

The Tale of Four, 2016, directed by Gabourey Sidibe, 23 min

This multi-layered story inspired by Nina Simone's "Four Women" spans one day in the lives of four different women connected by their quest for love, agency and redemption.

2:49PM - 4:30PM

The Melt Goes on Forever: The Art & Times of David Hammons, 2022, directed by Harold Crooks & Judd Tully, executive produced by Lisa Cortés 1 hr 41 min

A chronicle of the singular career of the elusive African-American art star David Hammons from Watts rebellion era ’60s L.A. to global art world prominence today. Hammons’ category-defying practice – rooted in a deep critique of American society and the elite art world – is in the words of one art critic “an invitation to confront the fissures between races.”

4:30PM - 6:08PM

Little Richard: I Am Everything, 1 hr 38 min, 2023, Directed and produced by Lisa Cortés

Breaking decades of erasure, Cortés’s biography of Richard Penniman reveals the black queer origins of rock music, exploding the whitewashed canon of American pop to finally crown the true King – and Queen! – of our nation’s most celebrated cultural phenomenon: rock ‘n roll.

5 Minute Intermission

6:13PM - 7:44PM

The Space Race, 1hr 31 min, 2023, Directed by Lisa Cortés and Diego Hurtado de Mendoza

Combining historic archival footage and stirring interviews with NASA astronauts including Victor Glover, Cortés traces the heroic struggles of the Black astronauts whose courage and conviction ensured the crew of Artemis II would reflect the excellence and diversity of America’s space explorers.

7:44PM - 8:30PM

Talkback and Q&A with Denise Greene and Lisa Cortés.

Accessibility requests can be made by e-mail [email protected].

Black on Screen: A Century of Radical Visual Culture, captures 100 years of local and transnational Black movement work and artistic evolution on film. Sourced from The Schomburg’s collection and others, it takes a kaleidoscopic look at Black life and expression across diasporas, rendering a range of storytelling traditions that incite and inspire Black world-building. The Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division (MIRS, pronounced “meers”) at the Schomburg Center collects and preserves audio and moving image (AMI) materials related to the experiences of people of African descent. The division has amassed nearly 400 collections, approximately 5,000 square feet, in a variety of formats, which captures the gestures and sounds of major historical, artistic and cultural moments and influencers. While the strength is the Black American holdings there is considerable Caribbean and African representation in the collection.

This year, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture continues celebrating the 100th anniversary of its founding! Join us all year long for a wide array of special events, exhibitions, and more as we celebrate this milestone and continue the legacy of Arturo Schomburg.

Schomburg100 | Exhibition | Special-Edition Library Card | Become a Member

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FIRST COME, FIRST SEATED Events are free and open to all, but due to space constraints registration is requested. Registered guests are given priority check-in 15 to 30 minutes before start time. After the event starts all registered seats are released regardless of registration, so we recommend that you arrive early. We generally overbook to ensure a full house.

GUESTS Please note that holding seats in the Langston Hughes Auditorium is strictly prohibited and there is no food or drinks allowed anywhere in the Schomburg Center.

ACCESSIBLILITY Accessibility requests can be made by e-mail [email protected].

E-TRANSPORTATION NYPL policy prohibits electric transportation devices (e.g., motorbikes, e-bikes, e-scooters, e-skateboards) from being brought into or stored at library sites for any length of time, as this is the best way to keep our spaces & people safe.

AUDIO/VIDEO RECORDING Programs are photographed and recorded by the Schomburg Center. Attending this event indicates your consent to being filmed/photographed and your consent to the use of your recorded image for any all purposes of the New York Public Library.

PRESS Please send all press inquiries (photo, video, interviews, audio-recording, etc) at least 24-hours before the day of the program to Leah Drayton at [email protected].

Please note that personal and professional video recordings are prohibited without expressed consent.

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Host or Publisher Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture