The International Institute presents a unique cinematic experience with the screening of silent films with live piano music. On this occasion we screened the film The Scar of Shame from 1929, directed by Frank Peregini and written by David Starkman. It was the last film produced by The Colored Players Film Corporation of Philadelphia, a company dedicated to creating pieces starring and aimed at African-American audiences.
Our film curator, Sibley Labandeira, will give an introduction in Spanish to contextualize the film. Next, sonia megias He will play the film on the piano while we screen it.
The film tells the story of Alvin (Harry Henderson) and Louise (Lucia Lynn Moses), two young African-Americans from different social backgrounds who get married for the wrong reasons and whose love cannot overcome the enormous challenges they face. The film is an interesting example of the so-called “race films”, films from the early XNUMXth century focused on social, cultural and economic issues of American life told from the point of view of the African-American community. In some instances we find films directed by African-American pioneers such as Oscar Michaux, in others, as is the case here, they are the product of collaboration between white directors and producers with black actors.
It is a type of cinema as unknown as it is fascinating and emerges in a determining context, in the midst of the struggle of ambitious, dynamic and creative artists to reclaim their identity through a new means of representation. It has much in common with the Harlem Renaissance, in the sense that it seeks to offer a dignified and complex portrait of the African-American experience in the United States, an experience in which issues of class, the value of education, the importance of righteousness morality and tensions between the rural and urban world play a fundamental role. This complex melodrama is a reflection of all this.
Presentation of the film in Spanish: Sibley Labandeira, Ph.D..
Pianist: sonia megias.