Out of the Archive: CHAMELEON STREET
Schedule
Mon, 06 Apr, 2026 at 07:00 pm
UTC-05:00Location
FilmScene (at The Chauncey) | Iowa City, IA
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Out of the ArchiveArrive hungry at 6:15pm for a pre-screening meal | plus post-screening discussion
"Chameleon Street exists as a gloriously strange one-off that deserves to be appreciated by a new generation sure to delight in its rich palette of cinematic reference, humour and formal invention."—Ashley Clark, Sight and Sound
Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 1990 Sundance Film Festival—yet criminally underseen for over three decades—Chameleon Street recounts the improbable but true story of Michigan con man Douglas Street, the titular “chameleon” who successfully impersonated his way up the socioeconomic ladder by posing as a magazine reporter, an Ivy League student, a respected surgeon, and a corporate lawyer. Elevated by a dexterous performance and versatile direction from multi-hyphenate actor-writer-director Wendell B. Harris Jr., the film pins a lens on race, class and performance in American identity, which has lost none of its relevance. At once piercingly funny and aesthetically mischievous, Chameleon Street is a “lost masterpiece of Black American cinema” (BFI) long overdue to take its rightful place in the independent film Canon.
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Where is it happening?
FilmScene (at The Chauncey), 404 E College St.,Iowa City, Iowa, United StatesEvent Location & Nearby Stays:
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