One of American cinema’s boldest voices, Charles Burnett (b. 1944) has crafted a body of work defined by its empathy, literary interiority and clarity of vision. Best known for his debut feature Killer of Sheep 1977, Burnett is renowned for blending immersive naturalism and poetic lyricism in his textured expressions of the Black experience in America.

Born in Mississippi, Burnett moved to the Watts neighbourhood of Los Angeles as a child. During his college years, he became a leading figure of the ‘L.A. Rebellion,’ a group of filmmakers that first emerged from UCLA in the late 1960s. This loose collective worked together to create an alternative to Hollywood fantasy, with filmmaking that drew on cinéma vérité and Italian neorealism to capture the rhythms and details of contemporary Black life.

Burnett’s career has repeatedly been marked by setbacks, with three of his five features only officially released decades after their completion due to rights disputes and bureaucratic wrangling. He has nevertheless remained an uncompromising and celebrated cinematic artist, receiving a MacArthur ‘Genius Grant’ in 1988 and an honorary Academy Award in 2007. His Killer of Sheep is now recognised as a major and widely influential entry in the American film canon, and was voted one of the 50 greatest films ever made in the BFI’s 2022 Sight & Sound poll.

The program brings together Burnett’s feature films — his unofficial ‘Los Angeles cycle,’ as described by the New Yorker — along with a selection of rarely screened short films and his powerful docufiction The Final Insult 1997. It includes the new 4K restorations of Killer of Sheep and The Annihilation of Fish 1999, carefully remastered in consultation with Burnett and presented in Australia for the first time as part of this program.

Charles Burnett L.A. Rebel Retrospective
10 – 22 October 2025
Gallery of Modern Art, Cinema A, GOMA
www.qagoma.qld.gov.au