Join us for an afternoon of viewing the creativity that countered Hollywood stereotypes: the legacy of The L.A. Rebellion filmmakers.

This program features a screening of Spirits of Rebellion: Black Independent Cinema from Los Angeles, a documentary that introduces viewers to the groundbreaking artists associated with the L.A. Rebellion filmmaking movement. Additionally, attendees will watch a curated selection of short films from these artists

Dr. Mary Leonard, film professor at the University of Cincinnati, will open each screening with a brief introduction and lead a post-film discussion, guiding audiences in examining how these works reclaim narrative power and imagine more just futures through art and cinema.

Film showings take place in the Harriet Tubman Theater and are free with museum admission. This program offers a meaningful opportunity to engage with powerful films, deepen historical understanding and reflect on the enduring role of storytelling in the struggle for freedom.

1:00 Showing

• Spirits of Rebellion (1 hour and 40 minutes)
• Q&A with Mary Leonard

3:30 Showing

• Daydream Therapy (8:11)
• Medea (6:49)
• Hidden Memories (10:13)
• Rain (15:40)
• Q&A with Mary Leonard

The L.A. Rebellion filmmakers was a group of mostly Black filmmakers who came out of UCLA’s film school between the late 1960s and 1980s. Growing up during the Civil Rights and Black Power movements, these artists created a lasting, collective alternative to Hollywood cinema from within a major U.S. film school.

Instead of repeating common narratives and stereotypes, they built a new cinematic style based on Black lived experience, community and political awareness. Their films focused on everyday Black life without changing it for mainstream audiences, drawing ideas from global Third Cinema, African cinema, and experimental film.

Through their work, the L.A. Rebellion changed American independent cinema and paved the way for future Black filmmakers dedicated to authorship, cultural memory, and self-representation.

Mary Leonard teaches, writes, and curates events that incorporate Literature, Film, Media and other Arts, often working across disciplinary and linguistic borders.

Dr. Leonard teaches film at the University of Cincinnati. She is also the founder of the film program at the University of Puerto Rico – Mayagüez. In 2004, she produced and directed Textos Tuertos (One-Eyed Texts), staged readings of the work of writers Rita Indiana Hernández and Hugo Rios read by the writers against a backdrop of projected images. She conceptualized, designed and directed two editions of Optika: A Symposium on Visual Narration at the University of Puerto Rico (2005 & 2007). She was co-director of Mapping New Caribbean Cinema, a conference held in the Dominican Republic and sponsored by the Dominican Festival of Global Cinema (2020). She is the co-founder and co-host of Caribbean Film Forum, online conversations on topics related to film in the context of the Caribbean (2021 - present) and co-coordinator of the Caribbean Film Education Network (2022 – present).

Dr. Leonard is one of the recipients of a National Endowment of the Humanities grant for the 2022 year that funded the establishment of an Oral History Center at UPRM. For this project, she worked with oral historians on the design of interdisciplinary courses in which oral historians and documentary filmmakers work together with communities to document their stories. She is one of the directors of Mare Nostrum: A Symposium on Central American and Caribbean Film, a conference that took place in Panama City, Panama in April 2025 in association with IFF Panamá, the Panamanian film festival. She has also been a juror at film festivals in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.

Dr. Leonard’s publications on Caribbean cinema include “Wind, Water, Women: Liminal Spaces and Border Crossings Between Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic” (Black Camera, 2019), “De la DIVEDCO al Documental Contemporáneo en Puerto Rico” (Exégesis, 2019-20), a review of Los Viejos Cines de Puerto Rico by José Hernandez Mayoral (Vivomatografías 2021), a review of Early Puerto Rican Cinema and Nation Building (H-Net - Caribbean 2024) and “El Lente Cosmopolita de Nelson Carlo de los Santos Arias” (La Gran Pantalla Dominicana, Almenara, 2023).

In Cincinnati, she has curated film series included in the programming of two Fotofocus biennials: Jurakán, a series about hurricanes from Caribbean perspectives (2022), and Caribbean Eye (2024). In April 2025, she presented the Dominican film It Runs in the Family at the Woodward Theater. In September 2025, she presented the Dominican film Pepe, recipient of the 2024 best director award at the Berlin Film Festival, at the Esquire Theater. All of these presentations have included question and answer sessions with the filmmakers.

Mary Leonard’s writing about a variety of arts-related topics can be found on her website: www.maryleonard.org. News and information about films, filmmakers and filmmaking in the Caribbean, and Caribbean Eye screenings in greater Cincinnati and beyond are posted on her Instagram, @caribbean__eye.