8903 Empire

Dooni is the eulogy, voiced by actor Timothy Johnson, of the American soul singer and disco legend Sylvester (1947-1988) as delivered by the gospel singer and preacher Walter Hawkins.

A short film that "channels the 1966 Cleveland Uprising." - MoMA

Portrait based on the first cinematic representation of Afro-American intimacy in the 1898 film Something Good-Negro Kiss.

Employees of the Cleveland Water Department on the hunt for leaks in the infrastructure in Cuyahoga County.

Two gentlemen making a living hustling metal in Cleveland, Ohio.

SPICEBUSH interweaves various fragmentary narratives concerning education, luck. landscapes, gaining and losing a job, and the passage of time. The technique and style employed alternates between the documentary, the symbolic, and more conventionally scripted scenes. Filming individuals engaged in their careers conveys the documentary aspect. At a symbolic level, the fossil is a leitmotif suggesting past and present. The title of the film refers to the state butterfly of Mississippi, Spicebush Swallowtail. In the film, Mississippi is a place of origin. The Spicebush Swallowtail represents renewal or starting over. Throughout the film, a little girl appears in different guises and settings, functioning indirectly in the role of the chorus. The scripted scenes, shot in a documentary style, collaged with the other scenes begin to create the traces of a narrative structure.

This short is based on Chester Himes’s novel Cotton Comes to Harlem (1965) and its adaptation for the screen by Ossie Davis in 1970. The cotton in the novel and film comes from the region around Columbus, Mississippi. Shot in noir-style, the film focuses on the scene when detectives Coffin Ed and Grave Digger Jones interrogate Lo-Boy, an artist/hustler, about the event around the demise of his friend Early Riser.

by Kevin Jerome Everson

Chelsea Drive displays three decades of Black student style, fashion and dance at the University of Virginia.

"A 16mm cinematic exploration of African American intellectual, social, and political life at the University of Virginia during the 1970s. Conceived and written by UVA History Professor and author Claudrena Harold and directed by Harold and UVA Professor of Art, filmmaker/artist Kevin Jerome Everson, the film stars Erin Stewart (the bank teller/race driver in Everson's 2006 feature film "Cinnamon") as Vivian Gordon (the director of UVA's Black Studies program between 1975 and 1980). The film tells the story of African-American women and men who through their public and private gestures sought to create a beloved community that thrived on intellectual exchange, self-critique, and human warmth." - Trilobite-Arts-DAC, Claudrena Harold, Picture Palace Pictures

Historic UFO sightings over Mansfield, Ohio, are evoked through memory, report and gesture.

Two University of Virginia workers share a drink and conversation at a local nightclub. One worker is a phlebotomist and the other is a former EKG technician who has relocated from New Mexico and works now in the university cafeteria.Starring Ricky Goldman and Richard Cooper. Inspired by the 1973 film "The Mack" starring Max Julian and Richard Pryor.

KJE captures the grand finale of Emancipation Day, the annual Detroit River Fireworks, in 2014. Founded by Walter Perry, Emancipation Day was celebrated in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, every August 1 from 1932–1967 to mark the anniversary of British Parliment’s abolishment of slavery in 1834. Also known as The Greatest Freedom Show on Earth, the festival was large enough at one time to double the city’s population. As Emancipation Day became increasingly associated with the Freedom Movement across the border, the Windsor Police Department and city council began to push against the event, eventually culminating in its cancellation in reaction to the Detroit rebellion in 1967.

Set in Charlottesville during the early 1990s, "Pride" follows an aspiring writer as she finalises stories for the latest issue of "Pride", a student run newspaper at the University of Virginia. Over a hectic two-day period, she puts the finishing touches on the upcoming issue. Despite the looming deadline, she moves with a calm confidence.

A new film by Kevin Jerome Everson and Claudrena N. Harold. Part of the Black Fire UVA series.