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focus on spike lee

Spike Lee on the set of 'Do the Right Thing'

A career survey of the provocative, powerhouse filmmaker who revolutionised the role of African American talent in contemporary cinema.

Curated by Roberta Ciabarra

Friday 5 - Sunday 14 December 2008
$13 Full $10 Concession
6 Session Packages: $60 Full $48 Concession

Please note: 6 Session Packages can only be purchased by phone (03 8663 2583) or in person at the ACMI Box Office. All sessions must be selected at time of booking.

Free screening > When The Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts on Sunday 7 December. See below for details.

Read Professor Ed Guerrero's essay on Spike Lee

Thanks to: Forty Acres & A Mule Filmworks, Cinémathèque française, NBC Universal, Roadshow Film Distributors, Twentieth Century Fox, HBO Documentary Films, Sony Pictures, Hollywood Classics, Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros., ACMI Collections

do the right thing The break-out hit that sealed Spike Lee's reputation as a socially engaged filmmaker with a bravura visual style.

crooklyn Co-written by Lee with siblings Cinqué and Joie Lee, Crooklyn fairly bursts with seventies pop culture references and a spirited sense of fun.

summer of sam Lee draws on a specific historical moment - the hot, violent summer of 1977 in New York City - to explore deeper cultural anxieties.

when the levees broke: a requiem in four acts An impassioned portrait of New Orleans and its beleaguered citizens in the wake of the fearsome destruction inflicted by Hurricane Katrina.

25th hour Lee tackles the fallout of 9/11 on the collective psyche in a film that captures the atmosphere of New York in the months following the attack.

get on the bus A disparate group of black men travel to Washington D.C. for the Million Man March in Lee's inventive and energetic 1996 film.

malcolm x Denzel Washington, in an Oscar-nominated performance, towers over Lee's sprawling drama based on The Autobiography of Malcolm X.

girl 6 An aspiring actress works as a phone sex operator in this satire on the commodification of sex which also finds time to spoof Foxy Brown.

clockers Isaiah Washington, Harvey Keitel and John Turturro star in Lee's provocative 1995 drama adapted from the novel by Richard Price.

he got game Lee pulls out all stylistic stops in his underrated drama which explores the pressures and seductions laid at the feet of young black athletes.

jungle fever A fledgling romance between an uptown African-American man and an Italian-American woman exposes a seam of bigotry in their respective social sets.

mo' better blues Lee's 1990 outing is laden with the jazz sounds that influenced the director growing up with musician father Bill Lee, who composed the score.

inside man Clive Owen plays cat to Denzel Washington's detective mouse in a heist-cum-hostage drama set in a fraught, multi-ethnic, post-9/11 New York City.