Screening Freedom Series: “Drylongso”
@ Logan Center for the Arts, The University of Chicago
915 E 60th St, Chicago, IL 60637
Opening Sunday, August 27th, from 1PM - 4PM
This film series happens on Sundays, Jul 9-Aug 27, 1-4pm / Screening Room
Seating is limited; please RSVP
“Drylongso” is an old African American term that means “ordinary,” or “just the same old thing.” Ambitious and densely packed, Cauleen Smith’s remarkable debut feature addresses the everydayness of violence and the extraordinary beauty of daily life.
Pica is a young woman growing up in Oakland, California, who feels deeply the value and vulnerability of everyone’s life but her own. At home, her room is perpetually violated by her mother’s partying visitors, and her work in illegal poster distribution puts her in nightly danger of attack. At school, she is unable to make any progress on her 35 mm photography project. Instead, armed with charming savvy and a Polaroid camera, Pica tirelessly documents the existence of young Black men, whom she believes to be an endangered species.
Along the way, she snaps a photo of Tobi, a young Black woman, disguised as a man, who is running from a violent boyfriend. Tobi discovers that her assumed gender gives her new strength and freedom of movement around the city. Fate, however, does not spare Pica’s boyfriend, Malik, and his death inspires her to turn the rampant casual violence into something transcendently beautiful through her art.
Full of irony and inspired by the lyrics and rhythms of hip-hop music, Drylongso breathes fresh air into popular notions of Black culture.
If Black men are endangered, Black women are still safer when they dress as Black men. Shot on a shoestring budget, Drylongso is a filmmaking triumph which tells a story that needs to be heard. —Shari Frilot, 1999 Sundance Film Festival
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Tags: Chicago, Drylongso, Hyde Park, Logan Center for the Arts, Screening Freedom Series, Screening Freedom Series: “Drylongso”, The University of Chicago
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