A Place of Rage (1991)

A Place of Rage is a 1991 film by Pratibha Parmar. The film includes interviews of Angela Davis, June Jordan, Trinh T. Minh-ha, and Alice Walker. It discusses and asks for political action regarding racism and homophobia, linking the two issues together. It was created to be aired on British television and it is 52 minutes long.

The main interviews of Davis, Jordan, and Walker were filmed in the present day. Davis and Jordan discuss the effects of Rosa Parks, Fannie Lou Hamer, and other activists; as well as women's roles in black churches during the African-American Civil Rights Movement of 1954–68 and the outcome of the 1960s Black Power Movement. Parmar took a 1970 prison interview of Davis and intercuts scenes of poetry of June Jordan. The documentary also uses music from the Staple Singers, Neville Brothers, and Janet Jackson as well as documentary scenes of the 1960s.

The film title originates from how the interview subjects say there was a "place of rage" within black people in the 1960s where they collected anger from being oppressed and released it against the persons oppressing them. The interview subjects stated that by the 1990s this shifted to a sense of defeatism and internal repression characterized by drug use and resignation.

Synopsis

À partir d'entretiens avec les artistes et militantes Angela Davis, June Jordan et Alice Walker, Pratibha Parmar fait une mise au point sur la situation des femmes afro-américaines tout en s'intéressant à leurs combats. S'appuyant sur certaines figures de femmes célèbres pour leur lutte en faveur des droits civiques, chaque intervenante confronte son récit personnel à l'Histoire afin d'élaborer une réflexion en profondeur sur les mouvements féministes et antiracistes aux États-Unis.