A String of Pearls: The Films of Camille Billops and James Hatch, part 1

A String of Pearls

UCLA Film & Television Archive and Los Angeles Filmforum present

Thursday, October 12, 2023, 7:30 pm (doors open 7:00 pm)

At the Billy Wilder Theater, Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90024

Full information at https://www.cinema.ucla.edu/events/2023/string-of-pearls-camille-billops-james-hatch

Admission is free. No advance reservations. Your seat will be assigned to you when you pick up your ticket at the box office. Seats are assigned on a first come, first served basis. The box office opens one hour before the event.

Camille Billops and James Hatch were partners in life and work. Together, they created inventive, playful and expansive ways to tell personal and provocative stories about race, gender, class and the human experience and much of their work has been difficult to access. 

This two-night program will feature their complete body of work — shorts, mid-lengths and a feature film — as beautiful new restorations. Billops appears in many of the films, often having the camera on herself or walking into the frame as she navigates conversations and spaces with her family and friends, bringing viewers closely into her life to talk about larger systemic issues in society. The first night includes Suzanne, Suzanne; A String of Pearls and Finding Christa (Grand Jury Prize, Sundance Film Festival) — often referred to as The Family Trilogy — where Billops explores the legacy of physical abuse in her family, adoption and motherhood in a practical and unsentimental way, and speaks to four generations of Black men about their experience in the world.