BAMcinématek Presents: Killer of Sheep

Part of the BAMcinématek series Ghett'out Film Festival

Tue, Apr 10, 2012 at 6:50pm
Q&A with Charles Burnett

Directed by Charles Burnett
With Henry G. Sanders, Kaycee Moore, Charles Bracy

(1977) 83min, 35mm

Growing increasingly detached and numb from the psychic toll of working at a slaughterhouse, Stan finds respite in moments of simple beauty: the warmth of a coffee cup against his cheek, slow dancing with his wife in the living room, holding his daughter. Shot on a shoestring budget in the Los Angeles ghetto of Watts in the mid-1970s, Killer of Sheepoffers no solutions; it merely presents life—sometimes hauntingly bleak, sometimes filled with joy and gentle humor. Patron filmmaker of the Ghett'Out Film Festival, Charles Burnett’s watershed film was one of the first films to be selected for the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry and was chosen by the National Society of Film Critics as one of the 100 Essential Films of all time. "Killer of Sheep is one of the most striking debuts in movie history and an acknowledged landmark in African-American film" (Terrence Rafferty).