Hot Sheet: Free Sketch

1. FILM: Free Angela and All Political Prisoners
Director Shola Lynch’s fascinating new documentary about Angela Davis, Free Angela and All Political Prisoners, takes viewers back to the (now out lesbian) professor’s youth, when her social justice activism got her implicated in a botched kidnapping attempt that end with a bloody shootout, four dead, and Davis’s name on the FBI’s 10 most wanted list. It’s an engaging vérité-style doc that coincides with the 40th anniversary of Davis’s acquittal on charges of murder, kidnapping, and conspiracy, and Lynch does a great job of letting Davis herself talk about being branded both a terrorist and a revolutionary. Though there’s no LGBT-specific content (except Davis), it’s still a relevant and provocative look at an activist who still has much to teach us (read Davis’s recent book, The Meaning of Freedom from City Lights Books) and can reflect on the power struggles over race, class, and justice that continue in the U.S. The film open today in select AMC theaters in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Oakland, Philadelphia, Atlanta, and Washington D.C.