University News Last updated 12 October 2020
Screen legend Pam Grier is to receive a lifetime achievement award recognising her contribution to cinema, at a festival dedicated to examining portrayals of race, gender and diversity in cult film.
The award-winning star of 70s hits Foxy Brown, The Big Bird Cage, and Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown, has been named as the guest of honour and will provide a special streamed address to the annual Cine-Excess Film Festival this November.
Titled ‘Representations as Weapons: Cult Film and the Politics of Resistance,’ this year’s Cine-Excess not only considers Pam Grier’s impact on cult film, but also charts the wider influence of blaxploitation cinema, race and ethnicity in horror remakes and LGBTQ+ representations across a range of film traditions.
The festival also examines films which challenge existing perceptions around ethnicity, from the Night of the Living Dead, Blacula and Candy Man, to Jordan Peele’s smash hits Get Out and Us, which also tackle contemporary issues of race and class.
The Festival, organised in association with Birmingham City University and the Black Sands Educational Project, is led by Professor Xavier Mendik.
He said: “We are truly honoured that Pam Grier has accepted our invitation to receive a Cine-Excess Lifetime Achievement Award at this year’s event. In a career that has spanned more than thirty years she has pioneered the representation of strong African-American heroines, often appearing in pulp productions that carried strident messages about gender and racial equality.
Born in Winston-Salem, Grier’s career started in 1971, when Roger Corman of New World Pictures launched her with The Big Doll House, a socially incisive cult film about a women's penitentiary. This led to Grier taking on similar roles in The Big Bird Cage, which further built her emerging reputation as a female action star.
However, it was Grier’s influential performances in 1970s blaxploitation classics such Jack Hill’s films Coffy (1973) and Foxy Brown (1974) which cemented her status as the leading Black female film icon in an era of race conflict in America. This reputation was later confirmed with her 1975 appearances in both Friday Foster and William Girdler's film Sheba, Baby.
After the decline of the blaxploitation craze she became a regular on the 1980s TV series Miami Vice, and played a supporting role as an evil witch in Ray Bradbury's and Walt Disney Pictures' Something Wicked This Way Comes. Grier then returned to action cinema as Steven Seagal's partner in the 1988 release Above the Law.
During the 1990s, the actor went on to appear in a number of films that drew on her earlier landmark performances. This included Original Gangstas, which reunited many of the leading blaxploitation stars in a contemporary gang thriller. However, it was her central casting in Quentin Tarantino’s 1997 film Jackie Brown that introduced Pam Grier to a new generation of movie goers. The film also starred Samuel L. Jackson and Robert De Nero in a narrative that celebrated the independent female action persona that Grier had crafted with her 1970s roles.
Pam Grier will be presented with her Cine-Excess Lifetime Achievement Award at a special live streamed event on Friday 6th November, where she will also discuss her experiences as a black female screen star with the festival audience.
The 14th edition of the Cine-Excess Festival (November 5 – 7) will comprise of a themed online conference, alongside a streaming season of cult film premieres from across the globe.
For more information visit: www.cine-excess.co.uk