“A real discovery! NAKED ACTS is an exploration of Black female sexuality and identity and the struggles to live a creative life, told through the story of an actor grappling with whether to perform a nude scene.” - Mark Olsen, Los Angeles Times
“It's really the embodiment of beauty and expectations, like what is a Black woman expected to do on screen when she’s seen, is she sexualized, is she not sexualized, can she be seen as beautiful, are you expecting her to look a certain way…and [it] also deals with how a Black woman may view herself, and I think that rang very true to me.” - Autumn Johnson, programmer at the MFA Houston on Naked Acts
NAKED ACTS follows Cece (Jake-Ann Jones), an aspiring actress and daughter of former Blaxploitation star, Lydia Love, as she is cast in her first major role. In a confrontation with her mother, CeCe proclaims her desire to play “tasteful” roles, unlike those she witnessed Lydia play. As she grapples with the cost of her desire to embody characters with expansive interiority on the screen, the budding star quickly learns she can’t escape her insecurities—until she learns to contend with her own selfhood.
After seeing Chicagoan Yvonne Welbon’s 2003 documentary SISTERS IN CINEMA, which featured Davis among other Black women filmmakers, Maya Cade—creator of the Black Film Archive, and recent Black Harvest Film Festival juror—fervently sought out NAKED ACTS in the Black Film Center Archive at Indiana University. As the audacious film went undistributed during initial screenings, Cade messaged Davis on Twitter to ask if she wanted to explore wider, albeit belated, distribution. After Davis agreed, Cade sent it to Milestone Films, advocated for its importance, and NAKED ACTS was (re)released. Cade’s resuscitation of the film extends the enduring legacy of Black women’s intergenerational caretaking in the arts, perhaps most famously embodied by Alice Walker’s rediscovery of Zora Neale Hurston’s THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD. (Maya Cade, Camille Bacon) Film Center exclusive.
Presented by Black Harvest Film Festival in partnership with Jupiter Magazine.
The Film Center is ADA accessible. This presentation will be projected without open captions. The theater is hearing-loop equipped. For accessibility requests, please email filmcenter@saic.edu