BY KAREN BOSSICK
In 2016 Oge Egbuonu served as associate producer on the film “Loving,” which earned an Oscar nomination for actress Ruth Negga as it told the story of a couple whose court case struck down prohibitions against interracial marriage.
Now, Egbuonu is back with a documentary titled “(In)visible Portraits,” which surveys the history of Black women in America.
It will be livestreamed free of charge at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 2, by The Community Library as part of its 2021 Winter Read of Octavia E. Butler’s novel “Kindred.” Egbuonu will be introduced and interviewed by Winter Read intern Asia Angel, a student at the Sage School in Hailey.
The film features the work of poet Jazmine Williams and visual artist Victoria Cassinova. And it features the words of such academics as Joy DeGruy, author of “Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome;” Sociology Professor Patricia Hill Collins; Pan-African Studies Professor Melina Abdullah and Ruha Benjamin, author of “Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code.”
The film also features immigration activist Sheila Thomas and grassroots activist Helen Jones.
Egbuonu told the Los Angeles Times that the titled featured the “In” in parentheses because “As much as this society tries to erase Black women, it can’t because the society was built on the backs of Black women.”
Even the Black Lives Matter uprising was created by three Black women, she said.
Egbuonu and her many subjects “unpack a litany of harmful labels, conspiracy theories and even their enduring hopes for the future over the course of just 92 minutes,” said Kate Erbland in “IndieWire.” “ ‘(In)Visible Portraits’ functions as both a necessary corrective to American history and an intimate exploration of what it means to be a Black woman.”
To join the program, go to https://livestream.com/comlib