>> PAYTON: This year, an institution of film preservation turns 40.

And to take you inside, we have taken the grueling trek across the parking lot from our studio.

Don't say I never do anything for you.

♪ >> PAYTON: Friends and folks, welcome to "Flyover Culture."

I'm Payton Knobeloch.

And today, we are looking at a very cool component of film history, that just so happens to be right in my backyard, inside Herman B.

Wells Library on Indiana University's campus.

The Black Film Center and Archive houses thousands of films and special collections and reference materials by and about Black filmmakers, and they have been doing it for four decades.

>> Our mission is preserving, celebrating, and exploring the heritage of Black filmmakers.

And those makers are scholars, directors, actors, as well as spectators and audiences.

>> PAYTON: Now led by Dr. Francis, the BFC/A was started in 1981 by Dr. Phyllis Klotman, then a professor at the university.

Klotman noticed a troubling disparity in how much recognition was being given to Black filmmakers and their projects, compared to their White counterparts.

And when those films aren't covered or discussed, they fall by the wayside when it comes time to preserve them.

That's what catalyzed her to start the BFC/A.

>> The Black Film Center/Archive is the only academic repository entirely devoted to the study of Black film.

And the center archive concept has to do with Dr. Klotman's vision of collecting, preserving, and protecting the artifacts of Black film, but also sharing it.

She was inspired by the fact that Bloomington was not on either of the coasts, but was a kind of center in the true sense of having the potential of being a gathering place.

By publicizing the work of Black filmmakers, that publicity becomes an act of preservation in that it's creating access.

It's rewriting the generally known history Black film.

There is so much we have not seen, so much that has not been uncovered.

We don't even know what we have lost yet until it's found again.

>> PAYTON: To just scratch the surface of what's been uncovered, I met with archivist Amber Bertin to show me around the place.

>> Every day I'm surprised by something that we have.

We have not just film materials, but we also have filmmakers' personal papers.

We have publicity materials such as posters.

You can see some of them on the wall behind me.

There's lobby cards.

There's press kits.

Here at the BFC/A, we like to say that we are not only preserving the films.

We are preserving the conversations around those films.

>> PAYTON: First stop, the workroom where archivists, like Amber and here Dan -- say hi Dan -- inspect materials for any kind of wear and tear, and try to fix those problems before they are too far gone.

Wear and tear like now.

>> In a previous generation, there was a tear, and you can actually if you look closely, you can see the edges of a previous tape splice.

>> PAYTON: After that, we went next door to check out the BFC/A's newest addition, the 60ish-year-old Steenbeck editing table.

>> Here at the BFC/A, we use this machine just for playback, for researchers or for our internal research on the films.

Historically, filmmakers would have used this machine to edit their film materials.

This film print has an optical soundtrack on it.

This back here is actually the sound head.

So there's actually a visual waveform that is being read by a light reader in this section of the machine right here.

As you can see on this machine, the sound head and the image head are in different locations.

So in order to make that work, the sounds that corresponds to a particular frame on the film print actually has to be in a different location on the physical film print in order for you to hear sync.

>> PAYTON: We had one more climate-controlled stop on the tour.

>> So this is what I like to think of as the heart of the archive.

So this is our office storage vault, where we store most of our collection materials.

We have DVDs, vinyl records, film reels, photographs, publicity materials, posters, personal papers of filmmakers that are stored in the boxes that you see behind me.

>> PAYTON: Lots of what is on display is just the tip of the iceberg.

Amber pulled a few of their rarer items for me to check out.

There's a few items from the Phil Moore collection.

Moore was the first Black musician salaried to a major Hollywood film studio.

>> In the 1960s, he developed a little bit of pop icon fame and was actually featured in sort of cartoons, various comic strips, et cetera.

This is one of my favorite comic strips because it shows a bit of his snarky personality, and he's also holding his trademark pipe.

>> PAYTON: A lobby card used to advertise 1926's "The Flying Ace."

>> This film is particularly significant, not only because it's the only surviving film from the Norman Studios, but the Tuskegee Airmen routinely referenced "The Flying Ace" as the film that inspired them to become pilots.

When "The Flying Ace" was released, it actually was illegal for Black people to serve as aviators in the Army.

The Tuskegee Airmen sort of broke that barrier.

>> PAYTON: Tap shoes worn by dancing duo the Nicholas Brothers.

>> Harold Nicholas and Fayard Nicholas sort of came to prominence in Harlem at the Cotton Club in the 1920s and '30s, and were featured in Hollywood films, continued to work up until the 1980s.

Any person who has had any interaction with dance is always fascinated by these particular shoes.

>> PAYTON: And the original grave marker of Oscar Micheaux.

>> He directed such films as "Within Our Gates," "Girl from Chicago," "Body and Soul."

And he's -- he's buried in Kansas, and they actually created a -- a new grave marker for him, but this is the original one.

>> PAYTON: When I talked with Dr. Francis, I asked her which item in the collection spoke to her the most.

>> I particularly love the painting of Madame Sul-Te-Wan.

Madame Sul-Te-Wan is not her real name.

I love that she was an uncredited actor in, among other things, "Birth of a Nation."

Yet, here she sits in, as you will see, a grand portrait looking amazing!

She presents us with a completely cultivated, constructed, created persona.

And I love the way that it tells us about the pageantry of cinema.

I love that she was uncredited within her performances, like so many amazing Black performances, and yet here she is!

Significant enough for this painting, and then for us, at the Black Film Center/Archive, the painting embodies everything about what we do.

The forgotten, the overlooked, the lost, the unseen, within the larger culture, those are our stars.

>> PAYTON: As Dr. Francis mentioned, the BFC/A is the only one of its kind.

I asked her and Amber what that feels like.

>> It's an honor.

It's a privilege.

It's a serious responsibility.

And also, every town should have a Black film archive.

Every university should have a Black film archive.

They probably have a Black film history that they need to be documenting, and yet are unaware of.

We have peers in our field.

The Smithsonian has an amazing motion picture initiative around home movies and around the history of -- of television and other media.

The Schomburg Center for Research and Black Culture has a motion picture library within it.

So there are these other important papers and artifacts of Black film across a number of institutions.

>> Because there isn't anyone that's doing this, yes, there's a great weight of responsibility and a great sort of privilege to be able to say, like, we are putting a stake in the ground, and we are saying that this is important.

We are here to be the research and home for anyone who is interested in exploring this art form.

>> Yeah, the mission is the same.

Even as Black film is full of mysteries and unknowns and continues to be rewritten.

>> PAYTON: The BFC/A was launched 40 years ago to address a disparity in how Black film was being covered and preserved, but how has that disparity changed?

>> I think that there's more awareness of the issue than there was in 1981, and I think that there are more conversations that are being had.

Going back hundreds of years, Black archivists have been talking about the issues within mainstream archives and ignoring of preserving and collecting materials that are related to -- to people of African descent.

I'm seeing sort of hopeful beginnings of things happening, similar to that, but I think in archival spaces, there's absolutely still a need for us to do much more.

>> I think we're in a really exciting moment where a number of institutions appear to be ready to expand all of our imagination of what film history is.

And people are ready to understand that film history is multiple, plural, and constantly changing.

We've already seen in the last couple of years the amazing identification of "Something Good -- Negro Kiss," a 1898 film that archivist Dino Everett located in a collection and worked with the Scholar House and Field to identify.

That changes things, right?

The Museum of Modern Art had "Lime Kiln Field Day," the earliest Black cast film, a film that predates "Birth of a Nation," and just speaks to the innovation and creativity of Black filmmakers.

So that our histories of the Black image on film or Black film history don't need to begin with "Birth of a Nation."

They begin before.

They begin with the initiative, the creativity, the sense of humor, and the performance genius of -- of Black filmmakers.

This is an interesting moment, and I think the Black Film Center/Archive has an important role to play in providing the education that people seem to want about a changing and diverse, inclusive idea of who makes film happen.

>> PAYTON: A big thank you to Dr. Terry Francis and Amber Bertin at the BFC/A for talking with me today.

I will have links to their info down in the description.

And a very special thank you to, well, you!

This is the last episode of our first season of "Flyover Culture," and I am especially grateful that you took this ride with us.

Now I'm already thinking up new episodes for down the line, but let me know in the comments what you want to see, and what you loved from this season.

And don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss new episodes.

Thanks for watching, and I will see you next time.