Juneteenth Film Screening: How It Feels to Be Free

In honor of Juneteenth, the library will be screening the PBS American Masters documentary, How It Feels To Be Free. From their website,

How It Feels to Be Free is a documentary film about six legendary African American women performers and their engagement with the Black freedom struggle. This is the first film to focus on the unique contributions of female entertainers to that struggle, and to the related battle over representation in the mass media. How It Feels to Be Free eschews conventional narration to recount a narrative about women who challenged and overturned convention and instead relies on compelling interviews with the women themselves telling their own story.

This is a documentary about six hugely talented Black women performing artists, and their performances are featured prominently, providing the film with a library of stunning images and a memorably compelling soundtrack. Those images and sounds – from shots of a glamorous Lena Horne, to archive of Nina Simone singing “Mississippi Goddamn,” to ethereal roles of Diahann Carroll, to action sequences of Pam Grier kicking butt, to close-ups of a dignified, dark-skinned Cicely Tyson – are in a very real sense the beating heart of a film that has issues of beauty and representation at its core. Songs such as “How It Feels To Be Free,” “Four Women,” and “Freedom Now Suite” are not mere incidental music, but rather texts that are integral to the narrative.

No registration required. Please just stop by and enjoy this film with us.