Bush Mama

With director Haile Gerima in person

Part of the series Changing the Picture, sponsored by Time Warner Inc.

Dir. Haile Gerima. 1975/1979, 97 mins. 16mm. With Barbara-O, Johnny Weathers. After seeing a Black woman in Chicago evicted in winter, Gerima developed Bush Mama as his UCLA thesis film. Gerima blends narrative fiction, documentary, surrealism, and political modernism in his unflinching story about a pregnant welfare recipient in Watts. Bush Mama follows Dorothy (the magnetic Barbara O. Jones) as she is subjected to the oppressive cacophony of state-sponsored terrorism against the poor in her daily dealings with the welfare office and social workers. Dorothy undergoes an ideological transformation, from apathy and passivity to empowered action.