Radical documentaries

Black activism has played a large role in shaping the history of this nation, even shedding light on the wrongdoings of America's past.

Thursday night, the CFA screening room showed two new films in the third week of the Margaret Mead Traveling Film & Video Festival, both of which featured African-American stories relating the civil rights movement.

The first film, Aaron Mathews' "A Panther in Africa" (2004) was the highlight of the night. It documented the life of former Black Panther Pete O'Neal who was arrested in his native Kansas City on a gun charge in 1969. In order to avoid conviction, O'Neal and his wife fled to the Tanzania and have been living there ever since.

The film starts ironically with close-up shots of rifles being cleaned and then put together while a narrator tells O'Neal's background and his current reason for remaining in Tanzania.

The first part of the film looks like a nature program on the Discovery Channel due to the almost exclusive use of handheld cameras and the many close-ups of O'Neal and his men walking around the beautiful landscape of Tanzania.

After introducing the viewer to the new scenery, the camera follows O'Neal into his home to show what everyday life is like for him and his wife who also construct the United African-American Community Center in their town to help create a familial feeling in the community.

Matthews cuts between scenes of O'Neal in his everyday life and stock footage of him as a Black Panther, using the same voiceover to link the two.

A scene in which O'Neal is interviewed as a Black Panther in the '60s portrayed a wiser side of the man. He re-examines the stock footage from previous years and shows a certain remorse for his violent past.

The director portrays O'Neal as a very intelligent man who at first had felt trapped between two lands without a real place to call home. During one scene in which O'Neal lectures two African-American kids from his hometown Kansas City, he states that he feels "lost in a no man's land."

Pete O'Neal's amiable personality begins to shine as the documentary progresses. He gives a powerful speech in the latter part of the film in which he speaks of wanting to be a pimp before he had become a Black Panther.

O'Neal's comical side is revealed during his mother's stay. He sits smoking a cigar and talks about having to hide it from his mother, but as he says that, the film cuts to a camera inside the house that shows his mother sitting in the kitchen watching her son smoke a cigar.

At the conclusion of the film, the audience can see how O'Neal had changed during the filming of the documentary. He had helped others in his small community by creating a meeting center. He also states that he has no plans to go back to America.

"A Panther in Africa" captured the audience and held it with its unique style and personality. However the second feature, "aka Mrs. George Gilbert," seemed to do the opposite. Audience members fled the CFA Screening Room left and right as the second film wore on.

It's not that "aka Mrs. George Gilbert" is about an arid topic, but the way in which it was presented was not enticing.

The film is about Angela Davis, a famous radical philosopher and Black Panther, and one of the first women to hold a spot in the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted."

Her story is told in the style of an E! "True Hollywood Story."

The film however contains mostly shots of press clippings and strange voiceovers of Davis and an FBI agent who had been involved in the capture of Davis.

The half-hour film whipped through stock footage and pictures relating to her story, but the film itself didn't carry any personality. If it had been a film about someone with the notoriety of Amy Fisher, it would have been acceptable, but Angela Davis was not just some confused youth who had gotten into mischief.

This film was executed in a completely wrong manner and would have been better if it were filmed in a way comparable to "A Panther in Africa."