#drylongso

My Top 25 First Time Watches of 2024!

1. Love Streams (John Cassavetes, 1984) 2. Série noire (Alain Corneau, 1979) 3. Christine (Alan Clarke, 1987) 4. La morte vivante (Jean Rollin, 1982) 5. The Long Goodbye (Robert Altman, 1973) 6. Les Nuits de la pleine lune (Éric Rohmer, 1984) 7. Quatre nuits d'un rêveur (Robert Bresson, 1971) 8. La prima notte di quiete (Valerio Zurlini, 1972) 9. Céline (Jean-Claude Brisseau, 1992) 10. Angel Dust (Sogo Ishii, 1994) 11. Duelle (Jacques Rivette, 1976) 12. Les chambres rouges (Pascal Plante, 2023) 13. You Can’t Take It with You (Frank Capra, 1938) 14. Smooth Talk (Joyce Chopra, 1985) 15. Lemora: A Child’s Tale of the Supernatural (Richard Blackburn, 1973) 16. The ’Burbs (Joe Dante, 1989) 17. Daisy Kenyon (Otto Preminger, 1947) 18. Road (Alan Clarke, 1987) 19. Drylongso (Cauleen Smith, 1998) 20. Once Upon a Time in the West (Sergio Leone, 1968) 21. Little Odessa (James Gray, 1994) 22. The Company of Strangers (Cynthia Scott, 1990) 23. The Black Tower (John Smith, 1987) 24. Ocaña (Ventura Pons, 1978) 25. Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (Jaromil Jireš, 1970)

(My list in Letterboxd -click here-)

By Douglas Greenwood•MAY 2, 2025

The Letterboxd-ification of the movie world means there’s been a boom in self-described cinephiles. You know, the kind of guy who refers to new arthouse films by the surname of the director and loves to tell you he’s seen everything by David Fincher or Martin Scorsese. It’s a net positive for the film world, but the blind spots remain more jarring than ever, with attention still centered on the few. In these spaces, it’s the work of Black women that often goes ignored, but a new season at London’s BFI Southbank, Black Debutantes, makes it easier than ever to engage with the seminal work they’ve made.  It’s the season’s curator Rógan Graham (a longtime i-D contributor, we’re proud to say, and the legend behind Divas Do Film, known for programming Mariah Carey’s derided and iconic Glitter in the hallowed halls of arthouse cinemas) who you can thank for expanding your cinematic horizons. Over a year ago, she sat down with an industry colleague and considered why these films, ones that felt so important to the fabric of cinema, were impossible to see on the big screen in Britain anymore. So she got to work, crafting a program that offers a non-exhaustive but eye-opening look at films even the most obsessive cinephiles have likely never seen.  Starting now, both at BFI Southbank and, from May 5, on BFI Player, viewers can dive into them. We asked Graham about the series’ holy grail, her advice for breaking into the industry, and exactly who she wants showing up to Black Debutantes. Douglas Greenwood: Black Debutantes was born from a frustration of not being able to see many of these films, from such seminal but often under appreciated directions, in the UK. But you’ve called the season a “celebration.” Why that reframing? Rógan Graham: In the simplest way, it’s the fact that the season exists. And I don’t mean for me, I mean for audiences and filmmakers. It’s a positive thing that people can now engage with this work.  What frustrates me in the exhibition space is that films made by marginalized identities are given the “one off special event.” I wanted to challenge that. This is in one venue, but it’s a month of screenings and you have the opportunity to follow that curiosity. 

I’ve been conscious to not frame these filmmakers’ stories as tragic. There is tragedy when racism and sexism, misogynoir, homophobia, whatever it may be, prohibits anyone’s life. Misogynoir is a factor in many of these women only making one work, or not having much acclaim. As much as I can be angry at that, it’s not my job to frame their lives as some kind of failing. Those who are still alive might be frustrated, but they’re working, living, breathing. Maybe not getting funding, but they’re not gone. That’s their thing to say. I didn’t want to belittle their careers by asking, “Where did they go?” Did you have a “holy grail” film for this program—something you fought hard to find? There isn’t a film we couldn’t get, but there are a lot of films that aren’t in the season that feel like they should be. When I first started discussing the idea of the season, somebody listed off what they felt would be in there based on the title of the season. Actually, none of that is in there, probably because they were so easily guessing it.  My holy grail was Jessie Maple’s Will, which is a film that we almost didn’t get. She died in May 2023, and that was the first time I heard her name. She was the first African American woman to write, direct and produce her own independent feature. She was the first Black woman to join the camera operators union. She sued TV studios for discrimination. She was a pioneer, a union woman, and a worker in the industry. 

DRYLONGSO, 1998