October 2, 1995
October 2, 1995
Charlottesville, VA-Actor, director and producer Tim Reid will be joined by actors Richard Roundtree and Phylicia Rashad for a special presentation of Reid's directorial debut, Once Upon a Time...When We Were Colored, at 7:00 p.m. on Friday, October 27, at the Virginia Festival of American Film. This film will be followed at 10 p.m. by a screening of Shaft in Africa introduced by its star, Richard Roundtree. Both screenings will be at the County Office Building's Lane Auditorium.
Once Upon a Time...When We Were Colored, one of the first productions mounted by BET Pictures, is a bittersweet recreation of the days before integration, when the humiliation of segregation, discrimination and existence in "colored town" was a way of life. Underneath these cruel realities, however, there was a black community that provided comfort and protection from the harsh world outside. Amid the hidden "juke joints" and in the fellowship and music of the churches, it was possible to celebrate life with family and friends. The stellar cast of When We Were Colored also includes Al Freeman, Jr., Bernie Casey, Isaac Hayes, Damon Hines, Taj Mahal, and Polly Bergen.
Tim Reid, who appeared in the television series WKRP in Cincinnati
and who acted in and produced Frank's Place, makes his
directorial debut with Once Upon a Time...When We Were Colored.
Phylicia Rashad starred in the long running and immensely popular
television series, The Cosby Show. Richard Roundtree found
fame in the 1970's as Shaft. His filmography contains over fifty
appearances in films and shows ranging from Earthquake
and Man Friday to Roots.
When We Were Colored will be followed at 10:00pm by a late night screening of Shaft in Africa, a neglected gem from the "blaxploitation" film era, the final film in the Shaft series, introduced by its star, Richard Roundtree. According to Roundtree, the movie features his best performance in the action role. To his disappointment, people in the early seventies were not ready to follow Shaft's journey back to his roots. But, in 1995, when Roundtree and Reid are beginning preparations for a sequel which will delve further into Shaft's family and cultural background, Shaft in Africa anticipates the route new black filmmakers are now following.
The combination of camp, violence, and sex in blaxploitation films is once again in vogue in cities and on college campuses. During the past year, San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles theaters have all had their blaxploitation weeks. While blaxploitation revives, its younger followers and its own celebrities are beginning their turn away from 'hood movies, and rejecting Hollywood's capitalization on inner-city violence and black stereotypes. The very cast of Tim Reid's Once Upon a Time...When We Were Colored includes a blaxploitation roll call-Richard Roundtree, Bernie Casey, Isaac Hayes. Yet their participation is an endorsement of the kind of films that Tim Reid and Black Entertainment Television (BET) founder Robert Johnson have vowed to make, conveying the richness of African-American life behind and beyond the ghetto poses.