I want to corroborate Black women’s reality. Some of us feel safe and some of us do not, but within that spectrum, there’s grief, there’s relief, there’s whimsy. There are feelings of anxiety and apprehension, but also faith and trust. Our inner world is layered and super vast, and I want us to be able to see that depicted on the screen, witness Black women having these interior moments…

I call myself a director who edits, but I’m probably an editor who directs … The idea of handing this over to someone else is so foreign, so counterintuitive. For me, that’s where the real making takes place. So my process is sourcing footage from everywhere, whether that be the internet or some image I’m creating myself or a collaboration with a DP or an archive. But the actual process begins once we sit down at that hard drive, because it’s important for me to have that level of control. — Ja’Tovia Gary, interview with Rooney Elmi, 2019

This week at the AFI FEST presented by Audi, Gary brings her new 40-minute film THE GIVERNY DOCUMENT—which incorporates footage shot in New York City and at Monet’s historic gardens in France.

THE GIVERNY DOCUMENT will be preceded by BLACK BUS STOP, directed by Kevin Jerome Everson and Claudrena N. Harold.

THE GIVERNY DOCUMENT—SHORTS PROGRAM 6

Tuesday, November 19, at 7:45 pm.

Wednesday, November 20, at 3:15 pm.

Chinese Theatre

6801 Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles.

From top: Ja’Tovia Gary, image courtesy and © the artist and the photographer; Ja’Tovia Gary, The Giverny Document (2019), images courtesy and © the artist.