The Emory Cinematheque Presents: 4 LITTLE GIRLS (1997)

4 LITtlE GIRLS is Spike Lee’s first feature-length documentary. The film asks audiences to relive the horrific tragedy of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama on a Sunday morning in 1963. It poignantly examines not only what happened but more importantly, the lives of the girls killed and the lives of those left behind. “Only a filmmaker so resourceful, so entirely confident in his practiced craft, could have made such a quilt out of patches of nightmare and nostalgia – of gospels, ghosts, and grief. And only Lee, having earned the trust of these people, could have persuaded them to talk to him” (NEW YORK MAGAZINE).

Film scholar Delphine Letort writes about Lee’s documentary practice and his turn to documentary making saying: “The documentary’s explanatory approach to segregation provides valuable insight into the power dynamics of the period…” In addition, media professor Christine Acham believes the film “succeeds in shaking both black and white viewers out of their contemporary apathy to U.S. racial history.” Both Acham and Letort discuss the ways in which the film tackles public versus private memory. They insist, as does Spike Lee, the need for us to remember. “A day after the documentary was released, Birmingham police and the FBI formally reopened their investigation into the bombing due to unspecified ‘new information.’ Investigators say the timing was ‘coincidental’” (ROCHESTER: ABOUT… TIME MAGAZINE). The history of the investigation of the bombing continues to be outlined on the site. 4 LITTLE GIRLS was nominated for a ‘Best Documentary’ Oscar Award in 1997.

Professor Christine Acham, Chair of the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa, will introduce the film and lead the Q & A afterwards.
—
The Emory Cinematheque is a theatrical venue offered by Emory University’s Department of Film and Media. Each semester on Wednesday nights at 7:30pm in White Hall 208, the Cinematheque hosts professional screenings introduced by Emory professors and special guests. All Cinematheque events are free and open to the public. The Cinematheque presents this screening event as part of our series, 40 YEARS OF BROTHER SPIKE LEE, a retrospective of the trailblazing director curated by Emory Professor of Film and Media, Beretta E. Smith-Shomade.