Black Film Center & Archive: Indiana University Bloomington

An authoritative and accessible resource for histories yet to be written

Welcome to the Black Film Center & Archive.

We are an archive of the future—carefully preserving and providing the material for new film histories and creative projects.

We are also a one-of-a-kind reparative archive, championing and centering the creativity of Black filmmakers, scholars, and collectors from around the country, around the world, and here in Bloomington, Indiana.

We’re a gateway to new ideas and new questions about Black film, grounded in the physical artifacts, papers, and ephemera that trace the histories of Black people’s contributions to cinema.

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Studio and independent movie posters, recordings of historic Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame events, letters about the origins of filmmaking in Africa—learn about some of the things you might find in our archives.

Or come visit us and uncover a new history.

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Celebrating 40 years: The 1981 founding of the BFCA

Dr. Phyllis Klotman establishes the archive as a center in the Midwest for the research and study of Black film as well as to share this material with the community. It sits historically between Blaxploitation of the early 1970s, the independent filmmaking of the mid to late 1970s known as the LA Rebellion, and the emergence of Spike Lee’s career with the 1986 debut “She’s Gotta Have It.”

More about the history of the BFCA