The Black History Project

This is another MUST SEE doc…

Through A Lens Darkly: Black Photographers And The Emergence Of A People…

“A film that explores how African American communities have used the camera as a tool for social change from the invention of photography to the present. This epic tale poetically moves between the present and the past, through contemporary photographers and artists whose images and stories seek to reconcile legacies of pride and shame while giving voice to images long suppressed, forgotten, and hidden from sight…”

Inspired by Deborah Willis’s book, Reflections in Black, filmmaker Thomas Allen Harris casts a broad net with Through a Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People and begins with his family album. The film is a cornucopia of Americana that reveals deeply disturbing truths about the history of race relations while expressing joyous, life-affirming sentiments about the ability of artists and amateurs alike to assert their identity through the photographic lens…

…Through a Lens Darkly" demonstrates, it’s only through the eyes of black photographers that we see differently. With the thousand words vividly painted through each picture, we connect, identify and find solidarity… Some of the black photographers’ works here are breathtaking — and may prompt you to hunt down Willis’ book for the coffee table. But there’s so much more to take away from Harris’ documentary. It unequivocally confirms the necessity of diversity in media, the business of image making. With some of the most successful television shows this fall boasting people of color in front of and behind the camera, a centuries-old paradigm has only just begun to shift..

See also:

– See 6min. YouTube trailer of the doc HERE

– 1world1family.me – Digital Diaspora Family Reunion and 1World1Family social media campaign, the companion transmedia project to Through A Lens Darkly, engages audiences to discover connections between their own family archives and the film’s historical narrative, thus creating new communal linkages that underlie our common humanity.

–  NPR