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The Rhode Island Black Film Festival features emerging filmmakers, actors, and film industry insiders sharing their passion for the artistry of cinema. The Film Festival is held annually in April. Founded in 2017, the Rhode Island Black Film Festival (RIBFF) 's Black Classics Under the Stars screens films about individuals in history and in the arts that screens feature, short and documentary films about black culture.
The August 18, Black Classics in Film feature is Bonnie Blue: James Cotton's Life in the Blues
Bonnie Blue: James Cotton’s Life in the Blues is an emotionally evocative feature documentary that portrays the untold story of James Cotton, a legend whose musical influence shaped the Chicago Blues style having been mentored by the originators of the Delta blues tradition. Cotton’s life tracks a swath of America’s history -- from the post-depression cotton fields of the Mississippi Delta to tough Chicagoland’s era of brilliant artistic reinvention to today’s live music scene in Austin, Texas. In between are tours with Janis Joplin, Paul Butterfield and sessions with the Rolling Stones, Grateful Dead, Led Zeppelin, Santana, Steve Miller, B.B. King and many more. This new film capture’s America’s soul as the blues becomes interpreted in jazz, big band, rock and roll, punk, hip-hop and rap.
