Perelman Auditorium
Perelman Building
BlackStar Film Festival presents a screening of director Bridgett M. Davis’ seminal film, Naked Acts (1996).
Set within the demanding and revealing milieu of a low-budget film shoot, Naked Acts tells the story of Cicely, an actress, who has recently lost 57 pounds and has landed her first role in a low-budget art film. She soon learns that the role requires a nude scene. Her dilemma: How to keep her clothes on and keep her part? Cicely launches on a personal journey that unveils a secret she once kept hidden beneath her girth. Along the way, she discovers that emotional nakedness is far more revealing than taking her clothes off could ever be.
Bridgett will be in conversation with writer and cultural critic, Niela Orr after the film.
This screening is part of a series called Love and Time, curated by BlackStar Projects in conjunction with The Time is Always Now: Artists Reframe the Black Figure.
About the Artists
Bridgett M. Davis is writer/director of the 1990s film Naked Acts, which has received a 4K restoration and re-release by Milestone Films and Kino Lorber. Her memoir, The World According to Fannie Davis: My Mother’s Life in the Detroit Numbers, is being adapted to film by Plan B and Searchlight Pictures. Her new memoir, Love, Rita, will be published in spring 2025 by Harper Books. Bridgett’s second feature film, about the women of color who deeply influenced Jimi Hendrix throughout his last days in New York, is currently in development.
Niela Orr is a writer and editor. Her criticism has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Believer, The London Review of Books, and The Paris Review, among other places.