Founded in 1908, Allensworth was the first municipality in California to be governed by African-Americans. As we pass through the year and around the settlement, elements of this specific heritage also begin to accumulate: “Blackbird” by Nina Simone, “In the Pines” sung by Huddie Ledbetter, Lucille Clifton poems read out by a little girl direct to camera. But these are just echoes in a place that is now a museum, a space for reflection that the film maps out, fragments and amplifies as only cinema can, a place to think about what was, like the graveyard shown in the final shot. But remembering the past is also remembering that not all pasts are equal, and that’s where duration comes into play. Time still needs to be taken. – Forum Berlinale
James Benning
USA 2022
65 min | English
James Benning
Born 1942 in Milwaukee, USA, Studied mathematics, then film in Milwaukee. Taught at the California Institute of the Arts. Since 1979 he has been shooting documentary-experimental films as a radically independent director, until 2007 on 16mm, since 2009 digitally. He also creates installations with filmic elements in the field of art.
Filme
One Way Boogie Woogie 1977 | 11 × 14 1977 | Landscape Suicide 1986 | Deseret 1995 | Four Corners 1997 | California Trilogy (El Valley Centro, Los, Sogobi) 1999 – 2001 | 13 Lakes 2004 | Ten Skies 2004 | RR 2007 | Ruhr 2009 | Two Cabins 2011 | Maggie’s Farm 2020 | The United States of America 2022 | Allensworth 2022
Credits
B+K+T+P: James Benning | V: Arsenal Institut