New 4K Restoration
The screening will be followed by a virtual Q&A with director Charles Burnett, moderated by Dr. Terri Francis, Associate Professor at the University of Miami’s Center for Global Black Studies.
Charles Burnett's cinematic masterpiece Killer of Sheep, magnificently restored in 4K with sparkling picture and sound, is one of the crown jewels of the Black indie filmmaking movement known as the L.A. Rebellion. The film evokes the everyday trials, fragile pleasures, and tenacious humor of blue-collar African Americans living in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles in the 1970s. Burnett made it on a minuscule budget with a mostly nonprofessional cast, combining keen on-the-street observation with a carefully crafted script.
The story centers on Stan (Henry Gayle Sanders), a slaughterhouse worker battling exhaustion and disconnected from his wife, his children, and himself. Stan and his neighbors struggle just to get by, let alone get ahead. Only the kids, leaping from roof to roof, seem to achieve a mobility that eludes their elders. Burnett’s film focuses on everyday life in Black communities in a manner rarely seen in American cinema – combining lyrical elements with a starkly neorealist, documentary-style approach that combines deep nuance with riveting simplicity.
Killer of Sheep has been digitally restored to 4K and remastered by UCLA Film & Television Archive, Milestone Films, and the Criterion Collection. Restoration supervised by Ross Lipman and Jillian Borders in consultation with Charles Burnett.
Tickets:
$8 (members), $12.75 and under (nonmembers)
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