The New York City-based Kino International has come a long way, baby, since its founding in 1977. Always pure-of-heart and forever steadfast in its dedication to releasing to the home theater marketplace films of artistic or historic significance, Kino had the reputation for many years of being worthwhile but stodgy. The films were important, yes (when nobody else had James Whale’s THE OLD DARK HOUSE, Kino had James Whale’s THE OLD DARK HOUSE), and we were grateful, but the presentation could be workmanlike, unexciting, the transfers offered in “as is” condition, with little to no supplemental shotgun. In the boom days of DVD, with so much bonus material handed out like Halloween treats by such niche market independents as Anchor Bay, Image Entertainment, Blue Underground, Synapse Films, NoShame Films, Severin Films, Dark Sky Films (to name but a few), Kino seemed still to be putting out the ribbon candy. One gratefully accepted soberly packaged copies of, say, A WINTER TAN (1987) or THE 1,000 EYES OF DR. MABUSE (1960) and said “Thank you you very much, Grandma” and then ran outside to play with HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY (1981) or THE TOOL BOX MURDERS (1977) because hey had all the cool toys. While Kino will never have the deep pockets of other companies, they have tried to lift their game, and it is not at all uncommon these days for a Kino release to hit the street with a kickass audio commentary (coughTHE DEVIL BATcough, coughTHE DEATH KISS cough) to sweeten the deal. But something even newer and more exciting is brewing behind closed doors at Kino-Lorber, as the company is more properly known (it’s a merger thing, don’t sweat the details) and we can all be a part of making it happen.
“There was no place in the Hollywood studio system for African-American filmmakers and only a very narrow place for performers,” says Paul Miller, aka DJ Spooky (“That Subliminal Kid,” we used to call him back in New York City in the 90s, when he would choreograph one-of-a-kind cultural intersections downtown for lovers of music and movies), who is the executive producer of Kino Lober’s upcoming PIONEERS OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN CINEMA. This unprecedented archival feat is planned as a deluxe 4-disc set of films and fragments of silent and early sound films made by black filmmakers for black audiences — not as a rival to Hollywood, but as a tonic for those of color who didn’t see their life experience, or anyone who looked like them, on the silver screen. While some of the filmmakers whose works are collected within these discs have a certain degree of name recognition — Oscar Michaeux is considered the first successful African-American triple threat/writer-director-producer, who sought to counter white portrayals of black life and black characters with the truth as he knew and lived it, while author Zora Neale Huston, one of the jewels of the Harlem Renaissance during the Jazz Age, turned to documentary filmmaking to further her interests in anthropology and folklore — so many others have been swallowed up by time and, along with their works, forgotten.
Less well-known across the board are the Jacksonville, Florida-based Norman Brothers (whites who made “race” films for and featuring blacks), or the husband-and-wife team of James and Eloyce Gist, evangelists whose jawdropping HELLBOUND TRAIN (1927) unreels like a Jack Chick tract come eerily to life and was conceived to be exhibited not in theaters but in temples, revival tents, and wherever sinners might have expected an old time come-to-Jesus.
We will likely never know the whole of the story or all of the names of the black pioneers who took up the cause and assumed the expense of making films for African-Americans in those early boomtown years before Hollywood homogenized the marketplace and The Great Depression wiped out the independents…, yet even those among us who consider themselves sworn to the cause of film preservation and restoration are scarcely aware of even the known facts. Kino’s PIONEERS OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN CINEMA is a bold attempt to bring us up to speed, to establish context and chart influence, and share with us what was being made and what was being seen by a vast demographic of the American public who had been denied a voice. Restoration of the films and film fragments that will comprise this box set has been ongoing for years, privately funded, crowdfunded, piecemeal and painstaking, and it continues to this day, and will continue tomorrow. That’s where our contributions come in. Please visit the link below to learn more about who is involved and what films will be included and consider throwing some money Kino’s way to help make PIONEERS OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN CINEMA happen.