The Orphan Film Symposium begins Wednesday evening, April 11. During that same morning Terri Francis and Lina Accurso have organized this significant event in nearby Rye, New York. They will also talk about the Alice B. Russell Micheaux project on Saturday, April 14, 9:30am, as part of the Orphan Film Symposium at Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens, NYC. They will be joined by film historian Charlene Regester of the University of North Carolina.
Terri shares the news below and invites you to this special event.
Honoring Mrs. Alice B. Russell Micheaux
from the website of Indiana University Black Film Center / Archive
Through the efforts of BFC/A director Terri Francis, independent silent film historian Lina Accurso, and a generous community of individual donors, arrangements are in place to set a memorial headstone at the unmarked grave of Mrs. Alice B. Russell Micheaux in 2018.
Mrs. Micheaux was a pioneering film actress and film producer, as well as the second wife of renowned African American filmmaker, Oscar Micheaux. Alice Micheaux performed in The Broken Violin (1927), and in Oscar’s films including Murder in Harlem (1935), God’s Step Children (1938) and The Betrayal (1948). She collaborated with her husband as script supervisor and casting associate on Lying Lips (1939) and miscellaneous crew on Swing! (1938), Murder in Harlem (1935), Ten Minutes to Live (1932) and The Girl from Chicago (1932).
Mrs. Micheaux spent her final years as a ward of the state suffering from dementia, and was buried in 1985 in an unmarked pauper’s grave at the Greenwood Union Cemetery in Rye, New York.
On April 11, 2018, at 11:00 am, we invite you to gather at the site in Greenwood Union Cemetery, Rye, NY, for a meaningful remembrance of Mrs. Micheaux’s life and her vital contributions to early African American cinema as a producer, actress, script supervisor, and spouse to Oscar Micheaux. We plan to honor Mrs. Micheaux with a floral arrangement, music from Jasmine Muhammad, and a blessing from Rev. Martha Cruz, a member of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, local to Rye. Please join us and share the event information linked here.
Due to the long New York winter, we unfortunately will not be able to pour the foundation for the rose quartz marker on this occasion, but it will be in place by the anniversary of Mrs. Micheaux’s birth on June 30.
About BFC/A
The Black Film Center/Archive at Indiana University was established in 1981 as the first archival repository dedicated to collecting, preserving, and making available historically and culturally significant films by and about black people. The BFC/A's primary objectives are to promote scholarship on black film and to serve as an open resource for scholars, researchers, students, and the general public; to encourage creative film activity by independent black filmmakers; and to undertake and support research on the history, impact, theory, and aesthetics of black film traditions.
Symposium info at www.nyu.edu/orphanfilm.
