Happy February! In recognition of Black History Month, the Indiana University Libraries Moving Image Archive (IULMIA) is proud to highlight films from our collections that center Black communities, voices, and lived experiences.
Each week throughout February, we will feature a rare archival film, available to stream without restrictions for one week only on IU’s streaming platform, Media Collections Online. Follow us on Instagram for weekly announcements and streaming details!
This February, inspired by conversations with the Black Film Center & Archive and the Archives of African American Music and Culture, our curated selection focuses on Black music—music of the soul, of the body, of the heart.
Week 1 (February 2-8): Time of the Horn (1964, Dir. Russell Merritt, 6 min)
Time of the Horn, made by Russell Merritt (1941–2023) while he was a student at Northwestern University, is an experimental film shaped by his deep knowledge of classic Hollywood silent cinema. The film follows a young Black boy in California who finds a discarded trumpet and begins to mime playing it, drifting into a dreamlike jazz fantasy.
Though entirely dialogue-free, the film is set to a vibrant soundtrack featuring Duke Ellington’s music, performed by trumpeter Jonah Jones. Through this fusion of visual rhythm and musical expression, Merritt explores imagination, aspiration, and the transformative power of art— all without relying on conventional narrative.
Week 2 (February 9-15) : The Blues (1973, Dir. Samuel Charters, 20 min )
In The Blues, musicologist, writer, record producer, and first-time documentary filmmaker Samuel Charters, along with his wife Ann Charters—scholar, photographer, and painter—traveled through the rural South to record the lives and performances of legendary blues musicians including J.D. Short, Pink Anderson, Furry Lewis, Baby Tate, Memphis Willie B., Gus Cannon, and Sleepy John Estes.
The film opens with a title card of simple statement of purpose:
“This film is a documentation of the music and the environment of a few of the men who have given American music one of its richest song styles — THE BLUES.”
Filmed with quiet respect, The Blues portrays poverty, segregation, and racism not as spectacle but as lived context. Its observational style highlights the intimacy between musicians, their families, and their environments. The film captures how loneliness and hardship, when voiced through song, become shared experiences—how the blues can transform isolation into connection. Though Charters’s accompanying album became more widely known, the film itself was seldom seen after its completion.
Week 3 (February 16-22): Yonder Come Day (1975, Dir. Milton Fruchtman, 28 min)
Yonder Come Day is an intimate exploration of African American slave culture, tracing its Afro-American roots through song, memory, and oral tradition. Centered on Bessie Jones—a 72-year-old folk singer and the grandchild of enslaved people—the film reveals a vast and deeply personal knowledge of spirituals, work songs, and stories passed down through generations.
From the classroom of Yale to her porch on St. Simons Island, Jones reflects on her life’s mission: to preserve and pass on this cultural inheritance to young people, both Black and white. Through her voice and presence, the film honors music as living history—an archive of survival, remembrance, and continuity.
Week 4 (February 23-March 1): Banjo Man (1977, Dir. Joseph Vinikow & Reuben Chodosh, 25 min)
Banjo Man presents a rare portrait of John “Uncle Homer” Walker, an 80-year-old Black Appalachian banjo player whose life and music challenge commonly held assumptions about the roots of old-time mountain music.
The film was made in 1977 by Joe Vinikow and Reuben Chodooh, then roommates at Yale. Vinikow, a philosophy and film student, learned of Uncle Homer by chance and traveled from Connecticut to rural Virginia armed with a Super 8 camera and a tape recorder to meet him.
Through stories, songs, and archival photographs, Banjo Man evokes a nearly vanished world—one shaped by worship, labor, and celebration, all accompanied by music. Uncle Homer’s self-reliance and artistry reflect the resilience and independence of Black Appalachian communities and restore their rightful place within American musical history.
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