In-person: Q&A with filmmaker Walter Thompson-Hernández.

Admission is free. No advance reservations. Free tickets must be obtained on a first come, first served basis at the box office, where seating will be assigned.
 

If I Go Will They Miss Me

U.S., 2022

A young man watches airplanes and dreams of Pegasus, his father hears about the Delta airbus that dumped jet fuel in Southeast L.A., there are imaginary airplane people. A poetic and personal film about a family in Watts that lives between reality and the dream of taking flight. Winner of the U.S. Fiction Short Film Award at the Sundance Film Festival.

DCP, color, 13 min. Director: Walter Thompson-Hernández. Screenwriter: Walter Thompson-Hernández. With: Anthony Harris, Anthony Harris Jr.
Preservation funded by the Ahmanson Foundation, in association with the Sundance Film Institute

Killer of Sheep

U.S., 1977

“Killer of Sheep has always felt like home. It's texture, it's sounds, the pace and stillness by which the characters make sense of the world around them. It has and will always be the biggest inspiration for If I Go Will They Miss Me.”—Walter Thompson-Hernández

An official American classic, if not the American Bicycle Thieves that some have termed it, and one of the L.A. Rebellion’s most celebrated films. Killer of Sheep is without a doubt astonishing poetry, a seamless tango of realist sting and stylized grace notes, penetrating wit and agonizing heartbreak. The film centers around Stan (Gayle Sanders), whose brutal job in a Watts slaughterhouse can barely sustain his family whose humanity surfaces in their formidable daily struggle and moments of relishing beauty and hope. One of the first films selected by the Library of Congress for their prestigious National Film Registry.

35mm, b&w, 87 min. Director: Charles Burnett. Screenwriter: Charles Burnett. With: Henry Gayle Sanders, Kaycee Moore, Charles Bracy.

Restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archive. Courtesy of Milestone Film & Video.

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