British Film Institute Launches the UK's Biggest Ever Celebration of Black Screen Actors

'Boyz N The Hood' is getting a nationwide re-release, alongside lots of screenings and Blu-ray releases.

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The British Film Institute (BFI) has announced ‘Black Star’, a season of film and television dedicated to “celebrating the range, versatility and power of black actors”, which will run across the country and online from October 17 to December 31. The season is headlined by a nationwide re-release of John Singleton’s 1991 classic Boyz N The Hood, starring Ice Cube, Cuba Gooding Jr., and Laurence Fishburne, which will return to cinemas 25 years after it first came out. Also getting a nationwide release is the 1967 multi Oscar®-winning thriller In the Heat of the Night, starring the iconic Sidney Poitier. 

The BFI Southbank cinema in London will also have a two month programme of films, designed “to enable audiences to easily explore different areas of black stardom, from the rich history of ‘transatlantic stardom’ and the early years of Hollywood, to Baadasssss rebels and the stars of black comedies and romances.” Amongst the many films showing are iconic award winners like Spike Lee’s Malcolm X, Ali, 12 Years A Slave and Selma, blaxploitation movies like Foxy Brown and Shaft, cult classics like Blade and Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, and hip-hop classics including Friday and Gridlock’d.

Other events will include a national poll to discover the British public’s Best Black Screen, a host of new Blu-ray releases, and a collection of over 50 rare and notable titles spanning all the way back to the 1920s made available online on the BFI Player.

Black Star Programmer Ashley Clark commented: 

Black Star shows us many stories of black stardom, on both sides of the Atlantic. From cinema’s earliest trail-blazers to today’s transatlantic stars, I’m excited for audiences to enjoy icons, heroes and heroines back on the big screen where they belong.

There’s more information on the BFI website.

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