THE EXILES (1961) – Landmark American Independent Film Screening

The Philosophical Research Society is proud to present one of the great landmarks in American independent cinema, Kent McKenzie’s THE EXILES (1961). Striking and vital, McKenzie’s incredible film is important not only in its place in the burgeoning US indie movement of the late 50s/early 60s, but as an indispensable document of Los Angeles’ now vanished Bunker Hill district and the neighborhood, culture, and community – perhaps the last concentrated Native American community in metropolitan LA – that was entirely wiped out by callous governmentally driven redevelopment. 

THE EXILES chronicles one night in the lives of young Native American men and women living in the rundown Bunker Hill district of Los Angeles. Based entirely on interviews with the participants and their friends, the film follows a group of exiles — transplants who’d been relocated or  forcibly removed from Southwest reservations in the ‘50s— as they flirt, drink, party, fight, and dance. 

After graduating from USC in 1956, Kent Mackenzie began to hang around with a group of young Native Americans in downtown Los Angeles. He then asked them to collaborate on a film that would present a realistic portrayal of life in the community. In 1961, it was finished, but it was rarely seen for nearly fifty years. With UCLA Film & Television Archive’s magnificent restoration and Milestone’s release, THE EXILES stunned the film world. It introduced a filmmaker of incredible talent and insight and revealed a subject that had not been seen before or since: the Diaspora of Native Americans who had left the reservations for the city. Gritty, realistic, beautifully photographed, and energized by the brilliant rock-and-roll score by Norman Knowles and The Revels, THE EXILES is a cinematic miracle.

Following the screening, Peter Nabokov – anthropologist, author, and UCLA Dept. of World Arts & Cultures/Dance professor emeritus – will join us (via Zoom) for a conversation about THE EXILES’ historical context, legacy, and his forthcoming book about the film. 

Dir. Kent McKenzie, 1961, 72 mins, Unrated, USA, English, Digital

Restoration by UCLA Film & Television Archive

Special thanks to George Schmalz of Kino Lorber

 Please email [email protected] or phone 323-663-2167 with any questions.

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