L.A. Rebellion

“Film movements” arrived with the birth of cinema: German Expressionism and French Impressionism in the 1900s and 1920s; Soviet montage and poetic realism in the ’20s and ’30s; Italian neorealism and Free Cinema in the ’40s and ’50s. These movements and dozens of others informed the art of filmmaking and the perceptions of filmgoers around the world. They entertained and educated with new techniques, ideas and perspectives, establishing cinema as a tool for achieving social impact, if not a measure of social justice.

From the late 1960s, in the wake of the Watts Uprising, to the early ’90s and yet more civil unrest in the City of Angels, the filmmakers of the L.A. Rebellion movement — all students of an ethno-communications program at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television — crafted a cinema that revealed the experience of an underrepresented America through the lens of underrepresented Americans. Deeply influenced by the French New Wave, Third World Cinema and African Cinema movements, L.A. Rebellion filmmakers established a canon that gave license to filmmakers of color and others to tell their stories without the approval of a less-than-receptive Hollywood establishment. These women and men are trailblazers whose paths are tread by yet still underrepresented filmmakers — Black, Brown, LBGTQ and Indigenous worldwide — who are also Rebellious.

Demonstrating that the legacy of the L.A. Rebellion is a living one, we note that at the time of the UCLA Film & Television Archive’s groundbreaking 2011 retrospective “L.A. Rebellion: Creating a New Black Cinema” in 2011, 27 filmmakers were recognized as L.A. Rebellion creators. A decade later, and based on intervening scholarship in addition to a fresh consultation with the UCLA Archive, we are proud to be honoring a total of 48 L.A. Rebellion filmmakers. For this reason, we consider this particular award an “open edition,” and we look forward to continuing this process as additional figures are rediscovered for their contributions to the L.A. Rebellion collective.

— Tim Cogshell

With pride, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association grants a Special Citation to filmmakers of the L.A. Rebellion:

Gay Abel-Bey
Anita W. Addison
Shirikiana Aina
Don Amis
Melvonna Ballenger
Denise Bean
Ruby Bell-Gam
S. Torriano Berry
Carroll Parrott Blue
Evlynne Braithwaite
Charles Burnett
Ben Caldwell
Larry Clark
Julie Dash
Zeinabu irene Davis
Willie E. Dawkins
Mary Dell
Alicia Dhanifu
Omah Diegu (Ijeoma Iloputaife)
Jamaa Fanaka
Jacqueline Frazier
Teshome Gabriel
Haile Gerima
Karen Guyot
Pamela Jones (Revalyn Gold)
Alile Sharon Larkin
O.Funmilayo Makarah
Barbara McCullough
Orin Mitchell
James Mundy
Bernard Nicolas
Akintunde Ogunleye
Thomas Penick
Roosevelt Richards
Leroy Richardson
John Rier
Ivy Sharpe
Imelda Sheen (Mildred Richard)
Stormé (Bright) Sweet
Elyseo Taylor
Bethlehem Teshayu
Monona Wali
Kaliche Warni
Robert Wheaton
Iverson White
Grayling Williams
Billy Woodberry
Velfrances Young