Camille Billops
For more than 50 years, Camille Billops and James V. Hatchwere stewards of African American history and memory. As artists, activists, and collectors the duo were at the fore in raising awareness and concern about the "isms" (racism, classism, and ageism) embedded in the complex narratives that have shaped American culture, politics, and identities throughout American history.
Camille Billops won the 2002 Honor Award for oustanding Achievement in the Visual Arts from the Women's Caucus for Art, the Governors Award for Lifetime Services to the Arts from the Skowhegan School of Paintin and Sculpture and the Obie Award for Distinguised Contribution to Off-Broadway.
AVAILABLE FROM TWN
Finding ChristaCamille Billops & James Hatch
1991, 55 min., Color, US
This documentary presents a moving yet unsentimental view of motherhood and adoption. It explores the feelings surrounding the reunion of a young woman with her natural mother 20 years after being given up for adoption. The reunion is between filmmaker Cmille Billops and her and her own daughter. F...
The KKK Boutique Ain't Just Rednecks (76 minutes)Camille Billops & James Hatch
1994, 76 min., Color, US
Write Billops and Hatch: "Even as late as a hundred years ago, discrimination on the basis of race was considered a natural and even desirable trait for humans to possess. We Americans have tried to ignore it, deny it, suppress it, to contain it, tolerate it, legislate it, mock it, exploit it." Bill...
The KKK Boutique ain't Just Rednecks: A Docu/Fantasy about Everybody's RacismCamille Billops & James Hatch
1994, 60 min., Color, US
Write Billops and Hatch: "Even as late as a hundred years ago, discrimination on the basis of race was considered a natural and even desirable trait for humans to possess. We Americans have tried to ignore it, deny it, suppress it, to contain it, tolerate it, legislate it, mock it, exploit it." Bil...
Older Women and LoveCamille Billops & James Hatch
1987, 26 min., Color, US
Using interviews and dramatizations, this film achieves a touching and often humorous look at social attitudes towards relationships between older women and younger men. The filmmakers are involved on both sides of the camera as they direct their multi-racial cast in an insightful profile of older-y...
A String of PearlsCamille Billops & James Hatch
2002, 56 min., Color, US
With this film, Camille Billops completes her family's trilogy - three documentaries that cover more than thirty years: "Suzanne Suzanne", shown in the New Director's series at the Museum of Modern Art in 1982 revealed how abuse of Suzanne by her father led to her drug addiction. "Finding Christa",...
Suzanne, SuzanneCamille Billops & James Hatch
1982, 30 min., BW, US
This poignant documentary profiles a young black woman's struggle to confront the legacy of a physically abusive father and her headlong flight into drug abuse. Suzanne, after years of physical and psychological abuse, is compelled to understand her father's violence and her mother's passive complic...
Take Your BagsCamille Billops
1998, 11 min., Color, US
"My take on slavery: When the Africans boarded the ships bound for America, they carried in their bags all their memories of home. When they arrived in the New World, their bags had been switched, and in them they found nigger, beast, slave,...Many generations later, the children of these Africans t...
