Bless Their Little Hearts
This event took place Aug 10 - Aug 12, 2017
$12 General Admission
$9 Student/Senior
$7 Member
Billy Woodberry
U.S.
1984
1h 20m
About
The UCLA-based L.A. Rebellion, an African-American filmmaking collective, represented a sea change in the history of Black Cinema. Coalescing in the wake of the Watts Riots, with the catalyst of affirmative action, the group would include Charles Burnett, Julie Dash, Billy Woodberry, Haile Gerima, and many other students of color.
Billy Woodberry’s 1984 Bless Their Little Hearts is a canonical work of the L.A. Rebellion. The film follows the agonizing story of a family struggling to keep their household intact. Charlie, father of three children and married to Andais, seeks employment, but the ruthless poverty of the Watts ghetto in early 1980s LA takes an inevitable toll on the family.
Bless Their Little Hearts examines the psychological distress of unemployment, concepts of masculinity that are tied up with capital and aggravated by economic inequality, and the vulnerability of familial structures in a troubled community.
