Four Portraits – Love & Basketball [In-Person Only]
This event took place on Feb 23, 2022
$13 General Admission
$10 Student/Child/Senior
$7 Member
⚠️ Public safety notice ⚠️
NWFF patrons will be required to double-mask while in the building. Disposable masks are available at the door for those who need them. To be admitted, patrons ages 5+ will also be required to present EITHER proof of COVID-19 vaccination OR a negative result from a COVID-19 test administered within the last 48 hours by an official testing facility. Boosters are strongly recommended, though not required for entry.
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Gina Prince-Bythewood
US
2000
2h 5m
About
Monica, an aspiring professional basketball player, balances her hoop dreams and love for Quincy, her childhood love and rival, in this smashing debut feature by Gina Prince-Bythewood.
** Co-presented with Sankofa Film Society. **
Sparks fly both on and off the court in this groundbreaking feature debut by writer-director Gina Prince-Bythewood, which elevated the coming-of-age romance by giving honest expression to the challenges female athletes face in a world that doesn’t see them as equal. Sanaa Lathan and Omar Epps make for one of the most iconic screen couples of the 2000s as the basketball-obsessed next-door neighbors who find love over flirtatious pickup games, fall apart under the strain of high-pressure college hoops and families, and drift in and out of each other’s lives as they pursue their twin aspirations of playing professionally. Aided by stellar supporting performances and an eclectic R&B soundtrack, Love & Basketball captures the intoxicating passions, heartbreaking setbacks, and sky-high ambitions that mark a young woman’s journey to the top of her game and to lasting love.
(Gina Prince-Bythewood, US, 2000, 125 min, in English)
Film stills ©WBEI. Synopsis courtesy of Criterion.
“It is no small feat that Love & Basketball tells a love story without requiring a Faustian bargain from its heroine or its audience. In part, that’s because this is a movie that contains multitudes. It is a romantic drama, yes, but it is also a sports film.” – Roxane Gay, Criterion Collection
“Stylishly shot and bursting with visual and sexual energy, this is confident black women’s film-making and an eloquent tribute to the girl with the permanently grazed knees — and about time too.” – Geoff Andrew, Time Out- Geoff Andrew, Time Out
Four Portraits: Films by African American Women Directors
This February, we present four cinematic portraits, written and directed by African American women directors. The stories told in the series – of a college professor, a queer filmmaker and historian, an aspiring pro basketball player, and a teenage girl coming of age in a Louisiana family thick with secrets and history – shout out the broadly different experiences of Black women living in the United States.
This palette of historically and artistically significant films – all but Love & Basketball were recently selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress – are a salute to the past, present, and future of Black women in cinema.
Feb. 9 | Losing Ground (1982), the first dramatic feature directed by an African American woman since the 1920s. (NFR selection: 2020)
Feb. 10 | The Watermelon Woman (1996) (NFR selection: 2021)
Feb. 23 | Love & Basketball (2000), just added to the Criterion Collection in 2021.
Feb. 24 | Eve’s Bayou (1997) (NFR selection: 2018)
About Sankofa Film Society
Founded by Karen Toering and Jackie Moscou, former Artistic Director of Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute, Sankofa Film Society continues Moscou and Toering’s advocacy of independent films by people of color and women filmmakers. Sankofa Film Society believes that those most impacted are the best caretakers of their own stories.
Sankofa Film Society is also the Seattle home for films from ARRAY, the independent distribution company founded by Ava DuVernay.
Look here first for provocative indie film and discussion, opportunities for membership, travel and a wide variety of ways to connect in community with melanin-rich films.