NAKED ACTS (1996)

“Fresh, funny and original!”

-Variety

“Off-beat, razor-sharp comedy!”

-The New York Times 

Cicely's mom was a Blaxploitation icon akin to Pam Grier or Tamara Dobson, which means she grew up on film sets. As she has painful memories of those days, it is a surprise that twenty-something Cicely (Cece) has chosen to follow her mother's path and become an actress. Her mother sure isn’t happy when Cece – estranged for a few years and having recently shed 57 pounds – shows up to her video store one night to talk about her future.

Of course, Cece has no interest in dubious movies like her mother’s – she is cast in a low budget arthouse film, which comes with its own set of challenges, one of them being that the script demands a nude scene... Trash or art: in the end the problems remain the same. Cece embarks on a battle of wits with the writer/producer to modify her character’s arc and thus remain fully clothed. In the end, she will need to confront her body image issues, her fraught relationship with her mother, and her own troubled childhood to carve out her own identity as a woman.

The cinematic daughter of filmmaker Kathleen Collins — whose pioneering work Losing Ground inspired her to direct her sole fiction feature — Bridgett Davis encountered many challenges while releasing the film in the mid 90’s. When Naked Acts did not find a receptive distributor, Davis decided to take things into her own hands — distributing and promoting the film herself. Naked Acts enjoyed relative success in the alternative festival and theatrical circuit, but remained one of the criminally under-seen “most influential Black films.” Naked Acts features brilliant acting by leads Jake-ann Jones and the late Ron Cephas Jones (This is Us), in his only romantic lead.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

-ARCHIVAL AUDIO COMMENTARY BY DIRECTOR BRIDGETT M. DAVIS AND STAR JAKE-ANN JONES (2000)

-ARCHIVAL INTERVIEW FOOTAGE WITH BRIDGETT M. DAVIS (1990)

-CREATIVE DETOURS (1992 SHORT FILM BY BRIDGETT M. DAVIS)

-FILM SCHOLAR MAYA CADE INTERVIEWS DIRECTOR BRIDGETT M. DAVIS

-LAST WISH (1992 SHORT FILM BY BRIDGETT M. DAVIS)

-NAKED ACTS AT BAM (2024)

-NAKED ACTS TRAILER

“I felt empowered to portray a film-within-a-film for my feature, Naked Acts, because I knew that Losing Ground included a film-within-a-film. I felt empowered to tell the story of a community of black artists and actors because I knew another black woman filmmaker had done just that. And I felt empowered to explore a black woman’s inner life and sexuality on the screen because I knew (Kathleen) Collins had already ventured to do so.”

– Bridgett Davis on her influences and Kathleen Collins