Black Panthers - BAM

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• Location: Filmhuis Den Haag

Agnès Varda was living in California when one of the Black Panthers’ founders, Huey P. Newton, was arrested in 1967 after a traffic stop for killing a police officer—a clear case of racist injustice, according to the Panthers. In the summer of 1968, Varda went to a Free Huey demonstration in Oakland with her 16mm camera. She filmed the concert organized in support of the imprisoned leader, interspersed with speeches by Bobby Seale, H. Rap Brown, and Stokely Carmichael.

The atmosphere is festive, with dancing children and people lounging on the grass, often holding the Marxist-Leninist “Little Red Book.” But this is no picnic or party, Varda says in the voice-over. A Panther passionately calls for jobs, decent housing and education, an end to police violence, and the release of Black prisoners.

Black Panthers was scheduled to be broadcast on French television at the end of 1968 but was canceled at the last moment because, according to Varda, the censors feared the film “would reignite student anger."

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