Penitentiary

After a fight over a prostitute, Martel Gordone is framed for the murder of a white biker. When he is arrested, he aims to survive as a boxer while looking forward to his parole. While setting this violent film within the conventions of Blaxploitation, Fanaka evidentiates the physical punishment imposed over african-american bodies and the constant threat of rape - endemic and present over a past history of slavery.

Penitentiary portrays the prison as a microcosm of Black America, in its struggle between an externally imposed power and self-inflicted harshness within the black community. Like other films associated with the L.A. Rebellion movement, this one was locally filmed and produced: first, inside the L.A. Lincoln Heights jail, and then partially in the parks of UCLA itself. It has become, nonetheless, one of the biggest commercial hits of a filmmaker connected to this movement.

Duration: 99
Production year: 1979
Country: United States of America
Subtitles: EN, Subtitles: PT

Jamaa Fanaka

Originally named Walter Gordon, Jamaa was born in Mississippi in 1942, and is one of the most famous filmmakers associated with the L.A. Rebellion movement, also known as ‘Los Angeles School of Black Filmmakers’: a generation of filmmakers from the 60s to the 80s of UCLA, creators of a revolutionary Black Cinema diverging from Hollywood conventions and attentive to the real african-american lived experiences.

He discovered his passion for the moving image quite young at eleven years-old, when his parents offered him an 8mm camera. The family moved to the Compton neighborhood in Los Angeles, California the following year. Jamma, however, would only enroll at UCLA's Theatre, Film and Television School after 4 years in the Airforce - a moment when he would also change his name to the swahili words for ‘together we will find success’.

In a resourceful manner, Jamma received competitive funding which helped him write, produce and direct Welcome Home, Brother Charles (1975), Emma Mae (1976) and Penitentiary (1979) and guaranteed broad theater distribution of all his movies around the USA - before he would even finish his studies. Penitentiary became the most profitable independent movie of 1979, which pushed for following sequels in 1982 and 1987.

Fanaka also founded and directed the committee of Director Guild of America 's African American, through which he accused the cinema industry of discriminatory practices against women and minorities. His work was recognized by Turner Classic Movies, which guaranteed the TV premiere of Emma Mae and Penitentiary, in 2008. The filmmaker passed away in 2012, in Los Angeles aged 69.

Original title: Penitentiary

Jamaa Fanaka

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