‘Sometimes it’s not perfect, but it works’: film-maker Charles Burnett on his chronicling of Black working-class life — SkimNews
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- My Brother's Wedding was digitally restored and remastered by Milestone Films, UCLA Film & Television Archive, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, and Kino Lorber, and is now streaming on the Criterion Channel after sold-out screenings at New York's Film Forum and a planned UK and European rollout later this year.
- Charles Burnett said the film, based on a real dilemma he faced choosing between a wedding and a friend's funeral scheduled at the same time, grapples with what it means to 'be someone's brother's keeper' and make mature, principled decisions.
- The 1983 release was plagued by production problems — the lead actor disappeared from set after demanding more pay (Burnett later tracked him down working as a pastor), and a German broadcaster accepted a rushed rough cut as the final version over Burnett's objections, leaving the longer, unfinished cut largely invisible for decades.
- Milestone Films president Maya S Cade, who has served as Burnett's archivist for more than 18 months and also runs the Black Film Archive, called the restorations of both 'My Brother's Wedding' and 2025's 'Killer of Sheep' restoration 'resurrections' and uncovered never-before-seen on-set images while sorting through his materials.
- Burnett's 'My Brother's Wedding' introduced Arthur Jafa (as first assistant camera on his first-ever film set) and Julie Dash (as first assistant director) to each other — both went on to shape cinema in their own right — and the film was written and shot on location in south central Los Angeles, where Burnett grew up in Watts.
- Burnett was a central figure in the LA Rebellion film movement alongside Julie Dash and Haile Gerima, rejecting Hollywood norms in direct response to racist films like DW Griffith's 1915 'The Birth of a Nation' and prioritizing realism and stories about Black experience.
- 'Killer of Sheep' (1978), Burnett's debut, was restored in 2025 and was previously called 'the nation's least-known great film-maker' by the New York Times; Burnett said the restorations let him reminisce about non-professional actors and friends, many now deceased, 'who most of the independent films I made were done with.'
Why it matters: For more than 40 years, a landmark of the LA Rebellion movement was effectively inaccessible — now that Burnett's second film is restored and streaming on the Criterion Channel, students, critics, and newer audiences can finally see the work that shaped future auteurs like Arthur Jafa and Julie Dash, and assess what his career might have produced had distribution caught up with his vision.
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