Toward a More Perfect Rebellion tells the riveting story of the socially engaged filmmakers of color who studied in the Ethno-Communications Program at the University of California, Los Angeles, between 1969 and 1973. While the program is best known for training the trailblazing group of Black directors known as the L.A. Rebellion, this book also includes the radical Asian American, Chicana/o, and Native American filmmakers who collaborated alongside their Black classmates to create one of the most expansive and groundbreaking bodies of work of any US university cohort. Through extensive interviews with the filmmakers and cross-racial analysis of their collective filmography, Josslyn Jeanine Luckett sheds light on a largely untold history of media activists working outside Hollywood yet firmly rooted in Los Angeles, aiming their cameras with urgency and tenderness to capture their communities' stories of power, struggle, and improvisational brilliance.
Josslyn Jeanine Luckett is Assistant Professor of Cinema Studies at New York University. She is a former staff writer for Queen Sugar and The Steve Harvey Show, and her original teleplay Love Song was directed by Julie Dash for MTV.
"Josslyn Luckett’s lovingly detailed history of UCLA's Ethno-Communications Program (1969–1973) will permanently alter the way '1970s film' is understood and taught. It also makes a definitive case for approaches to cultural history that do not replicate siloed racial logics but are attentive to racial/ethnic/gender intersections and alliances."—Gayle Wald, Professor of American Studies, George Washington University, author of
It's Been Beautiful: "Soul!" and Black Power Television "A brilliant, long-overdue account of UCLA's legendary Ethno-Communications Program and the multiracial 'New Los Angeles' it radically envisioned, between the insurrectionist fires of 1965 and 1992, in contrast to its more prestigious peers of New Hollywood. A must-read for independent media artists and activists and their ardent communities."—Glen Mimura, author of Ghostlife of Third Cinema: Asian American Film and Video
242 pp.6 x 9Illus: 25 b/w illustrations
9780520402133$95.00|£80.00Hardcover
Apr 2025