The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles is running a major exhibition exploring the achievements and challenges of Black filmmakers in the US from the advent of cinema until the early 1970s.

Regeneration: Black Cinema, 1898–1971 has been extended until July 2023, and includes rarely seen excerpts of films, documentaries and newsreels, as well as photographs, costumes, props and posters. It also features contemporary artworks referencing the impact of the legacy of Black filmmaking and AR elements designed for the exhibition.

“This landmark exhibition seeks to restore lost chapters of American film history as it elevates the contributions of Black artists to present a more inclusive story,” says Academy Museum director and president Jacqueline Stewart.

“We’re incredibly proud to present Regeneration, an exhibition that demonstrates how the Academy Museum shares new scholarships, offers a more expansive vision of American film history, and encourages public dialogue about the past and present of film as an art form and a social force.”

Diversity of museum visitors
Recent research carried about by the Academy Museum showed that it attracted more than 700,000 visitors in its first year, with 50 per cent under the age of 40 and 50 per cent self-identifying as being from under-represented ethnic and racial communities.

Speaking to New York Amsterdam News, Stewart said of the research: “We felt we were doing something right. We’re a brand-new museum, so we can see across the field how older museums have really been trying to figure out how they can be more inclusive in ways to reach out to LA’s diverse population — they had to go back and re-tool themselves.

“We had the opportunity to open with this mandate, and to think very carefully how our collections, how our exhibitions are reflective of the diversity of the global community. I think that matters to people.”

Stewart was appointed director and president of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in August 2022, shortly before the first anniversary of the Renzo Piano-designed museum. A leading scholar, curator, and public educator on cinema, she had previously been appointed as chief artistic and programming officer of the museum in 2020.

“Our ambition in opening the Academy Museum was to give Los Angeles and the world an unprecedented institution for understanding and appreciating the history and culture of cinema, in all its artistic glory and all its power to influence and reflect society,” says Stewart.