Killer of Sheep
Screening on Film
With Henry Gayle Sanders, Kaycee Moore, Charles Bracy.
US, 1977, 35mm, black & white, 84 min.
Perhaps the most perceptive and poetic study ever made of Americans existing just above poverty, Burnett’s film revolves around Stan, a slaughterhouse worker struggling to maintain his integrity. Shot in gritty black and white, with a near-documentary technique and a cast of the director’s friends, Killer of Sheep presents an authenticity very rarely encountered in the cinema. In 1990, Burnett’s slice-of-life masterpiece was proclaimed a "national treasure" by the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress, and this year it has been honored by the Sundance Film Festival as one of the first films named to the Sundance Collection.
PRECEDED BY
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When It Rains
Directed by Charles Burnett.
US, 1996, video, color, 12 min.
Burnett takes an all-too-common social problem facing low-income families, the cycle of eviction and homelessness, and deftly transforms it into a celebratory lesson on the value of community.
