The Film Center is proud to be the home of Chicago’s first-ever complete retrospective of the films of Camille Billops and James Hatch. Black cultural life and storytelling are centered on screen in these six autobiographical works that innovated the documentary form and artfully weave together personal histories and social issues. 

Camille Billops (1933-2019) was a fearless filmmaker, artist, sculptor, historian, archivist, and staunch supporter of Black art and artists. Billops came into her own within the converging contexts of the 1960s civil and human rights struggles, New York’s emerging Black artists movement, and her personal struggles for affirmation. Her work is autobiographical, interpretive, and challenging. Without apology, she successfully drew from her life’s experiences, her education, and her observations of the world around her to carve out a space for her voice to be heard.

James V. Hatch (1928-2020) was a historian of Black theater, as well as a playwright, poet, archivist, and activist. For much of his professional life, Hatch quietly mobilized his white, male, straight privilege as a steward of African American history, art, and culture. He spent three decades teaching English and theater at the City College of New York. He also authored and co-authored more than a dozen books, including The Roots of African American Drama: An Anthology of Early Plays, 1858-1938 (1990) and Sorrow Is the Only Faithful One: The Life of Owen Dodson (1993).

Together, Billops and Hatch created the six extraordinary films of this retrospective. And at the center of their living partnership was the Hatch-Billops Archives at their loft in SoHo. The Archives has served as a hub for artistic collaborations, housing thousands of books, documents, photographs, and ephemera related to Black culture. Billops and Hatch held salons with Black artists, performers, and musicians, and recorded more than 1,200 oral histories, which were published in their journal, Artist and Influence.

This two-day, special presentation is hosted in curatorial collaboration with the Film Center by Miriam J. Petty, PhD, Associate Professor in the Department of Film, Radio, and Television at Northwestern University.

Exhibition materials, program descriptions, and film synopses are provided by Third World Newsreel in cooperation with Dion Hatch and the Hatch-Billops Collection Estate. Learn more at twn.org