The Story of a Three Day Pass (La Permission)

Melvin Van Peebles’s edgy, angsty, romantic first feature could never have been made in the United States. Unable to break into a segregated Hollywood, Van Peebles decamped to France, taught himself the language, and wrote several books in French, one of which, La Permission, would be the source for his stylistically innovative feature debut. Turner (Harry Baird), an African American soldier stationed in France, is granted a promotion and a three-day leave from base by his casually racist commanding officer and heads to Paris, where he finds whirlwind romance with a white woman (Nicole Berger)—but what happens to their love when his furlough is over? Channeling the brash exuberance of the French New Wave, Van Peebles creates an exploration of the psychology of an interracial relationship as well as a commentary on France’s contradictory attitudes about race that is playful, sarcastic, and stingingly subversive by turns, and that laid the foundation for the scorched-earth cinematic revolution he would unleash just a few years later with Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971).

Nothing But a Man

Directed by expat Michael Roemer after an NAACP-funded three-month research trip to the American South, Nothing But a Man is an unforgettable piece of American independent cinema. Ivan Dixon stars as a railroad worker whose burgeoning activism threatens his relationship with a preacher’s daughter in a small rural town. Made amid the turmoil of the summer of 1963, which included the murder of civil rights activist Medgar Evers and the March on Washington, Nothing But a Man also introduces audiences to Yaphet Kotto in his screen debut and Gloria Foster, who later became known for playing The Oracle in The Matrix (1999).

Make It Dinner and a Movie

Fanny's Restaurant & Café

All guests who present a ticket for a film screening, Tuesday through Saturday (and the first Sunday of every month), receive 10% off all food and non-alcoholic beverages at Fanny's. Discount only applicable on the same day as the screening and cannot be redeemed for another screening or date. Dinner reservations can be made on OpenTable or Resy.