Outsiders called it a ghetto, but the African Americans who lived there called it home. Remembering Bronzeville is a Milwaukee PBS documentary that reveals the story of Bronzeville, Milwaukee’s historic Sixth Ward neighborhood.
Remembering Bronzeville tells of a thriving and vibrant African American neighborhood in Milwaukee during the mid-20th century. The area hosted businesses, churches, entertainment and a sense of safety and pride. It flourished during and after World War II when blacks migrated from Southern states looking for family sustaining jobs. Just as the residents were enjoying a successful community, parts of their neighborhood were raised in the name of urban renewal.
Karen Slattery is a professor in the Journalism and Media Studies at Marquette University. Along with journalist and film producer Mark Doremus, they created a documentary that chronicles the rise and fall of a Milwaukee neighborhood. Funding for the film was provided by Marquette University.
“Bronzville was a successful neighborhood until city leaders decided to bulldoze through the heart of the area in the name of urban development,” says Doremus. “Freeways were being laid down all over the country, mostly in areas with little political clout, which meant minority neighborhoods.”
A few years ago, playwright Sheri Williams Pannell was developing a work for First Stage theater, Welcome to Bronzeville.
“The story detailed a young man struggling to find his place in a neighborhood full of opportunities,” says Slattery. “That gave us the idea for a documentary, and we interviewed dozens of folks who grew up in the neighborhood. Their memories bring to life a community that prospered despite segregation and racial discrimination. They fondly described a neighborhood of hard-working and loving people.
“To have meaningful conversations in our city about race relations, we need to know the history,” Slattery continues. “This is a part of Milwaukee’s history and collective memory and needs to be acknowledged.”
Remembering Bronzeville airs on Milwaukee PBS through November 10.
Film Girl Film Festival
Milwaukee’s Film Girl Film (FGF) is presenting its fourth annual film festival, celebrating women who work in the movie industry, be they before or behind the camera.
Formerly the Milwaukee Women’s Film Festival, FGF was founded by Andrea Thompson, a UW-Milwaukee film graduate. After living for several years in Chicago, Thompson returned to Milwaukee to start her own festival. “I wanted to develop a film festival for women’s voices from the ground up, not inherit someone else’s ideas or vision,” Thompson explains. As the festival grew, Thompson renamed it the Film Girl Film Festival. This year the festival will present 36 films.
Opening night will show the short documentary A Thousand Needles, which details women living with sexual and reproductive health issues. The following feature film, The Unlikely Story of the Lesbians of First Friday, tells of a group of lesbians living in rural Virginia, and how the women flourished in the homophobic era of the moral majority and Ronald Reagan. A talkback will take place after the showings, and an opening night pizza party follows at Nō Studios.
Filmmaking has long been a male-dominated industry. According to the website Women in Film, only 4.5% of feature films are directed by women, 14% employ female writers, and under 3% of films are scored by women composers. In Academy Award history, only five women have been nominated for best director but only one, Kathryn Bigelow, has won for The Hurt Locker in 2009.
“The festival does have some films directed by men, but they all tell stories of women or transgendered individuals,” says Thompson. “The Garden Left Behind is such an example. It’s the story of an undocumented trans woman living in New York City. It is getting a lot of national buzz.”
As Thompson suggests, “Come out and enjoy women working in film and leave the rest to us.”
The Film Girl Film Festival runs Nov. 8-10 at the Underground Collaborative, 161 W. Wisconsin Ave.
