"Regeneration: Black Cinema 1898–1971" looks back on key moments in the little-known history of black American cinema, and in particular on the hundreds of independent feature films made until the 1960s with African-American actors for an Afro audience. -american, called "race films", when racial segregation was still in force in theaters.

The exhibit, which highlights works largely ignored by major Hollywood studios and audiences at the time, opens with a recently rediscovered reel from 1898 showing two black vaudeville actors hugging.

"Are you ready to hear this secret? That we blacks have always been present in American cinema, from the start," director Ava DuVernay told a press conference.

“Present not as caricatures or stereotypes but as creators, producers, pioneers and enthusiastic spectators,” she adds.

"We should have shown this long before."

"Regeneration" is the second major temporary exhibition at the Oscar-winning Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences museum, which has come under heavy criticism in recent years for its lack of diversity.

Among the exhibits are jumbled up: the Oscar of Sidney Poitier, the first African-American to win the prestigious statuette for best actor in 1964 for "Le Lys des champs", the tap dances of the dancing duo the Nicholas Brothers or even a costume worn by Sammy Davis Jr in the movie "Porgy and Bess".

"Dark Manhattan"

"I was surprised because I was not aware of the existence of these feature films before starting the preparation" of this retrospective in 2016 and exploring the archives of the Academy, explains to the AFP the exhibition curator, Doris Berger.

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"I asked myself: + Why don't we know anything about this? We should know! +", she continues.

"These are really gripping films and proof that African American artists had all kinds of roles and there were lots of different stories."

Audiences can now see the carefully restored images of works such as the musical western "Harlem on the Prairie", the horror comedy "Mr Washington Goes To Town" or the gangster feature film "Dark Manhattan".

But many "race films" of which only promotional posters remain have been lost forever.

When Hollywood offered black actors of the time supporting roles as "butlers and +mamas+ (black nanny, often slave, to rich white American families, editor's note)", this type of independent film offered them roles of "lawyers , doctors, nurses and cowboys,” notes Doris Berger.

"It's proof (that Hollywood) could have been so much more diverse and exciting," she adds.

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The end of the exhibition focuses on the rise of the "blaxploitation", a genre of the 70s which put African-American actors in the forefront, launched by the black director Melvin Van Peebles, who died a few months before the coup. sender of "Regeneration", just like Sidney Poitier.

Belated but essential tribute

The exhibition is part of an effort by the Academy to respond to criticism of its lack of representativeness, embodied by the #OscarsSoWhite campaign, which in 2015 pointed to the lack of black artists in Oscar nominations.

The institution has since doubled the number of women and people from ethnic minorities among its members.

Beyond informing the general public about "race films", "Regeneration" also has the merit of having challenged certain black American directors.

"If I had known - about the actresses and all that - I would have had a completely different vision and approach to cinema," says director Charles Burnett.

"This work had to take place. It is long overdue. It is important and essential work", abounds Ana DuVernay.

"This exhibition highlights the generations of black artists whose footsteps we follow".

© 2022 AFP