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Black is Beautiful Film Series - Killer of Sheep

  • Fletcher Free Library 235 College Street Burlington, VT 05401 United States (map)

Take a seat at our film screening of engaging films by Black directors. Curated by Rajnii Eddins.

Movies held in the Fletcher Room. This week’s film is Charles Burnett’s Killer of Sheep. Killer of Sheep examines the black Los Angeles ghetto of Watts in the mid-1970s through the eyes of Stan, a sensitive dreamer who is growing detached and numb from the psychic toll of working at a slaughterhouse.

Frustrated by money problems, he finds respite in moments of simple beauty: the warmth of a coffee cup against his cheek, slow dancing with his wife in the living room, holding his daughter. The film offers no solutions; it merely presents life — sometimes hauntingly bleak, sometimes filled with transcendent joy and gentle humor.