Black in Period Films

Based on The Long Song an award-winning novel by Andrea Levy , this film is set during the final days of slavery in 19th century Jamaica. The Long Song follows the trials, tribulations and survival of a wily, strong-willed slave July (Tamara Lawrance) on a plantation owned by her odious mistress Caroline Mortimer (Hayley Atwell). A bit about the book: In her follow-up to Small Island, winner of the Whitbread Book of the Year Award and the Orange Prize for Fiction, Andrea Levy once again reinvents the historical novel. Told in the irresistibly willful and intimate voice of Miss July, with some editorial assistance from her son, Thomas, The Long Song is at once defiant, funny, and shocking. The child of a field slave on the Amity sugar plantation in Jamaica, July lives with her mother until Mrs. Caroline Mortimer, a recently transplanted English widow, decides to move her into the great house and rename her "Marguerite." Together they live through the bloody Baptist Wa...

Jesse Collins Entertainment television project company has released footage of the upcoming 'American Soul' 10 episode series! American Soul is based on the life of Don Cornelius, the creator of Soul Train the music-dance television series which ran for 35 years from 1971 to 2006. View this post on Instagram #AmericanSoul New Series. 10 Episodes. Coming February 2019. @BET #jcefilms A post shared by Jesse Collins Ent. (@jessecollinsent) on Nov 25, 2018 at 6:41pm PST We previously discussed this project when the amazing Kelly Rowland was casted as the legendary Gladys Knight . Rowland's rendition of 'Midnight Train to Georgia' can be heard towards the end of the video. So far I am impressed by the visual accuracy of the project. All of the costumes, hair, makeup, and set decorations seem to be pulled right from the series. This project has the privileged of  well shot footage to use as a reference....

Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Belle , Free State of Jones, Beauty and the Beast) will be playing Hosten in upcoming comedy-drama  Misbehaviour . In 1970 Jennifer Josephine Hosten won the Miss World contest becoming the first of woman of African ancestry to hold the crown.  Hosten and Jansen won first and second place respectively in 1970.  The 1970 Miss World Pageant is considered the most controversy in the organization's history. With more than 100 million viewers watching, the live broadcast was interrupted by the Women’s Liberation Movement. After invading the stage they made the claim that beauty pageants were degrading to women.  The backlash increased when Miss Grenada Jennifer Hosten was announced as the winner with the black Pearl Jansen, Miss South Africa (they sent a black and white contestant) as the runner up. There were accusations of the contest being rigged.  I am interested to see how this story is told. 

Before watching the newest episode of Outlander, I had already read some Tweets about the second episode of this season. I knew that in this episode the storyline would revolve around black enslaved characters. While of course this series ultimately follows the story of time traveler Claire Fraser, I was not disappointed by the attention paid to the experience of enslaved black persons. While the episode was gruesome and upsetting, I appreciated ‘Do No Harm’ for showing what life was like for enslaved persons in 18 th century America. Source: @Blacklanderz on Twitter  The episode starts with an enslaved woman winding up the clock for the day. I liked this included detail as it shows just how many tasks slaves were responsible for. Oftentimes media covers the field work that slaves were used for, but not the numerous other tasks they fulfilled to enable their owners’ lives of ease. In this episode we meet both Ulysses (Colin McFarlane) and  Phaedre  (...

Welcome to our first ever Outlander Episode Recap! As this is Blacks in Period Films, this recap will be specifically about any black characters that appeared in the season 4 premiere of the hit series.  Each week we  will discuss costumes, characterization, and the larger context of their place in history.   At the start of the episode we are told that we are in North Carolina 1767. I appreciate this timestamp, as it positions myself within the time and place of the story that I am about to watch unfold. 1738 map of North Carolina We get our first glimpse of black characters 44 minutes into the episode. They are enslaved servers. This is to be expected of a series taken place in 18 th century America. In 1767 there were about 40,000 slaves in the North Carolina colony. This was a sharp increase from the 6,000 enslaved persons that resided in 1729 North Carolina. Of those 40,000 slaves, about 90 percent of these slaves were field workers who performed...