FILMS || TITLES | FILMMAKERS | COUNTRIES

Killer of Sheep
Charles Burnett | USA | 1977 | 87 min.

Burnett's first feature was never commercially released yet awarded top prizes four years later at the 1981 Berlin and Sundance Festivals. Killer focuses on everyday details as a hard-working meat-packer in Watts gets laid off, yet turns down a lucrative offer to assist a couple of hitmen, and tries to remain a loving husband and father in an environment that blights the soul. Roger Ebert: "It caught the lives of the children with a fidelity to how kids really do fight, play, and cry -- and how they can sometimes be cruel simply because they're so scared."

Shown at the 1997 Charles Burnett retrospective Witnessing For Everyday Heroes, by The Film Society of Lincoln Center and Human Rights Watch International Film Festival.

Charles Burnett

Charles Burnett has been making movies for almost three decades, chronicling everyday lives in black families and communities. His strongly independent vision embraces humankind, so that the breakdowns and breakouts in families and by individuals -- fathers, wives, brothers, cops -- that he so provocatively and richly details are those of Everyman and Everywoman. Multitalented, Burnett has often produced, directed, written, edited, and filmed his own, very idiosyncratic work. This film, Killer of Sheep, first brought Burnett honors and attention. His mainstream success came in 1990 with To Sleep with Anger.

---

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL