National Film Registry Inductees for 2022 / How to vote on 2023's List

by Nathaniel R

CARRIE (1976)

It's that time of year when this becomes THE LIST EXPERIENCE. The Library of Congress has revealed the titles that have been added to the National Film Registry denoting films that are "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." We wish it were any time other than December each year given all the other lists and that this one literally never has anything to do with the film year in process / wrapping up. But it is what it is. It's feast or famine and everyone is alway determined to keep December so tight that noone can breathe or pay attention to anything they're feasting on for more than two minutes!

Here is th 2022 list in chronological order as always...

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Through Her Lens: 2011 (The 84th Oscars)

A series by Juan Carlos Ojano. Introduction / Explanation

At the 84th Oscars, the winner for Best Director was first-time nominee Michel Hazanavicius for The Artist (2011), the story of a silent film star on the verge of downfall as Hollywood transitions into the talkies. The recreation of that era's silent filmmaking became one of the more unusual Best Picture wins of recent memory. Hazanavicius was up against four men who were previous nominees in the category: Alexander Payne for the dramedy The Descendants, Terrence Malick for the art film The Tree of Life, and two previous winners in Martin Scorsese for the adventure Hugo, and Woody Allen for the period fantasy Midnight in Paris.

2011 was business as usual in the Best Director race, with no female director ever really in serious consideration. The only arguable exception was one extreme longshot early on in the conversation - Angelina Jolie for her directorial debut In the Land of Blood and Honey. Out of the 265 films included in the Reminder List of Eligible Films in 2011 (84th Academy Awards), only 19 (7.2%) were directed/co-directed by women...

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Dee Rees Bringing Flo Kennedy, Gloria Steinem, and The Fight for the ERA to the Big Screen in "An Uncivil War"

by Daniel Crooke

While her World War II-set Mississippi saga Mudbound continues to roll out across the fall festival circuit, steadily increasing its buzz along the way, rising director Dee Rees has set her sights on the feminist movement’s fight to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment for her next film: An Uncivil War. Particularly focusing on the work of iconic activists Flo Kennedy and Gloria Steinem in the early 1970s as they battle for a constitutional amendment guaranteeing equal protection under the law for all citizens regardless of gender, and against archconservative forces led by fundamentalist organizer Phyllis Schlafly, FilmNation will finance the film with production set to begin early next year.

This is an exciting new chapter in Rees’s already distinguished filmography – which, in addition to Mudbound, includes her tender, achingly gorgeous debut Pariah and the Emmy-nominated Bessie – and the story is ripe for the moment. After so evocatively illustrating in her earlier work the ways in which hard-won personal identity can be met with retaliatory cultural reverberations from the close-mindedness within and around your own community, Rees has set herself up for success to dissect the multi-layered muddle of how this feminist moment impacted America. Indeed, in her own words: “I'm particularly interested in digging into the messiness of the women's movement — the many different alliances that were formed and fractured and exploring who got left behind vs who got remembered.” Personally this quote reminds me of the backroom brainstorm meetings between the fractious feminist street bands of Lizzie Borden’s dystopian docu-manifesto Born In Flames, a film which happens to feature Flo Kennedy in a galvanizing supporting performance as an elder stateswoman of the cause. That story, like this one, is a tale of intersectionality.

As An Uncivil War marches into pre-production, who would you cast as Flo Kennedy, Gloria Steinem, and Phyllis Schlafly?

Great Moment in Gay - Pariah

In Great Moments in Gay, Team TFE looks at our favorite queer scenes in the movies for Pride Month. Here's Kieran Scarlett on Pariah (2011)

Writing this piece this week, in the wake of tragedy is especially difficult. Thinking about all of the incredible, vital voices that make up Team Experience, as well as the readers who this blog touches on a daily basis, it's impossible not to think that a great number of us could have been (and have been) in places just like that Orlando night club. Safe spaces for marginalized people—queer people in this instance—are sacred, rare and often self-forged. This is especially true of safe spaces for queer people of color, who face an even greater burden of those added identity politics. Now more than ever, it is important to recognize that being queer and open remains a revolutionary act. It's a sad truth to intuit—something so innate and unchanging being a cause for notice and affirmation in the face of a world that is still struggling to understand. It's also beautiful to observe the strength of the queer community, who continue to push forward, forging those safe spaces, making room in spaces that are not yet totally safe, prospering, thriving and living.

Which brings us to Dee Rees' 2011 debut feature film Pariah. This coming-of-age tale charts a young, black lesbian Alike (a magnetic Adepero Oduye) as she struggles to find herself. in the face of a home and school life that are not entirely welcoming to her identity...

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Posterized: Movies About Young Black Girls

Not every movie has a white straight male protagonist. It just seems like that since that's Hollywood's default and also the preferred proxy of most (white straight male) auteurs.

But the times are finally a-changing. This weekend features the platform release of a mesmerizing new indie called The Fits -- please see it as soon as it opens near you. I was so proud to push for honoring it on my jury at the Nashville Film Festival. Fresh perspectives on the screen can be so exhilarating. That's especially true when the execution is this confident. Remember the debut director's name, Anna Rose Holmer, since we're hoping for more great movies to come.

In the meantime, let's take a trip back through other features with young black girls as the lead character. I haven't seen the first or the last movie on this list of nine below but the rest all fall somewhere on the spectrum of good to great. 

How many have you seen?

• Just Another Girl on the IRT (1992)
• Eve's Bayou (1997) - Really need to watch this again as previously earlier this week. It was the breakthrough role for Jurnee Smollett-Bell who went on to series regular gigs in Friday Night Lights, True Blood, and The Underground. 
• Our Song (2000) - When it comes to superstar Kerry Washington, it's important to remember that I saw her first. Articles from the early Aughts are no longer online but trust that I gave her a rave review when I saw this teeny tiny indie in theaters and was startled by her total naturalism onscreen.

• Precious (2009) - Best Picture Nominee at the Oscars, and right here.  
• Akeelah and the Bee (2006)
• Pariah (2011) - One of the best LGBT films of the decade

• Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012) - Our #1 film of 2012, and also a Best Picture nominee at the Oscars
• Girlhood (2014) - terrific French film
• Annie (2014)

If you can think of other films with a child or teenage black girl as the lead character, please do share them so our list is more complete.