Drylongso (Newly Restored)

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Sunday, Feb 5, 2023
2 p.m.

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General admission $9.50
Senior, Students, and DIA Members $7.50

+$1.50 online convenience fee

Location:

Detroit Film Theatre

5200 Woodward Ave
Detroit, MI 48202
United States

USA/1998—directed by Cauleen Smith | 86 minutes

A lost treasure of 1990s independent filmmaking, Afrofuturist artist Cauleen Smith’s UCLA thesis film embeds an incisive look at racial injustice within a lovingly handmade buddy movie-murder-mystery-romance. Observing the alarming rate at which the young Black men around her are dying—indeed, “becoming extinct,” as she sees it—brash California art student Pica (Toby Smith) begins preserving their existence in Polaroid snapshots, along the way forging a friendship with a gender nonconforming young woman (April Barnett), experiencing love and loss, and being drawn into the search for a serial killer at large in the city.

Capturing the vibrant community spirit of Oakland in the nineties, Smith crafts both a rare cinematic celebration of Black female creativity and a moving elegy for a generation of lost African American men. This superb new 4K restoration, undertaken by The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, was supervised by Cauleen Smith and premiered at the 2022 New York Film Festival at Lincoln Center.

The DFT presents this special preview screening in advance of the film’s national release. 2000 Independent Spirit Award Winner; Grand Jury Prize for Best Film, Urbanworld Film Festival.
 

Two teens laying on the ground in school clothes and using tarot cards.

USA/1998—directed by Cauleen Smith | 86 minutes

A lost treasure of 1990s independent filmmaking, Afrofuturist artist Cauleen Smith’s UCLA thesis film embeds an incisive look at racial injustice within a lovingly handmade buddy movie-murder-mystery-romance. Observing the alarming rate at which the young Black men around her are dying—indeed, “becoming extinct,” as she sees it—brash California art student Pica (Toby Smith) begins preserving their existence in Polaroid snapshots, along the way forging a friendship with a gender nonconforming young woman (April Barnett), experiencing love and loss, and being drawn into the search for a serial killer at large in the city.

Capturing the vibrant community spirit of Oakland in the nineties, Smith crafts both a rare cinematic celebration of Black female creativity and a moving elegy for a generation of lost African American men. This superb new 4K restoration, undertaken by The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, was supervised by Cauleen Smith and premiered at the 2022 New York Film Festival at Lincoln Center.

The DFT presents this special preview screening in advance of the film’s national release. 2000 Independent Spirit Award Winner; Grand Jury Prize for Best Film, Urbanworld Film Festival.