![\"Black](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Compensation_image_06_2000.jpg\")
<\/p>\nZeinabu irene Davis\u2019 newly restored 1999 film \u2018Compensation\u2019 screens in San Francisco on July 17.<\/p>\n
Jul 10, 2026<\/p>\n
Updated 1:29 pm PT<\/p>\n
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John Earl Jelks as Arthur\/Nico Jones and Michelle A. Banks as Malindy\/Malika Brown in Zeinabu irene Davis’ 1999 film ‘Compensation.’\u00a0(Janus Films)<\/p>\n
When Ashley Clark joined the Criterion Collection as its curatorial director in 2020, he brought along a wish list of titles he hoped to acquire. One was Zeinabu irene Davis\u2019 first narrative feature, Compensation<\/a>, a 1999 black-and-white film about two Chicago couples who mirror each other across an expanse of decades.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s such a unique and thoughtful film about a lot of serious issues,\u201d Clark tells KQED. \u201cIt could sound academic or forbidding, but it\u2019s made with such a spirit of generosity.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Deaf actress Michelle A. Banks and hearing actor John Earl Jelks play Malindy and Arthur in the 1910s (and Malaika and Nico in the 1990s), Black Americans facing racism and emerging pandemics. Davis uses inventive techniques, like silent film\u2013era intertitles and archival images, to tell the two love stories in a way that Clark describes as \u201calive and beautiful and engaging.\u201d<\/p>\n On July 17, Clark will screen Compensation<\/a> at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in a co-presentation with the Bay Area Video Coalition. Both Davis and Clark will be present for a conversation following the screening. The event is a rare treat that just a few years ago would have been even more of a rarity.<\/p>\n Compensation screened at festivals 27 years ago, but the film was never picked up by distributors, and therefore never released in theaters. It remained in circulation thanks to Women Make Movies<\/a>, a nonprofit distributor in New York. That is, until Clark approached Davis about acquiring Compensation.<\/p>\n Now, Davis\u2019 independent feature is finally reaching audiences en masse. Compensation began streaming on the Criterion Channel in 2021, entered the Library of Congress\u2019 National Film Registry<\/a> in 2024, was digitally restored in 4K, received its first theatrical release in 2025, and is now out in the world as a Blu-ray and DVD.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of our metrics of success really is looking at Letterboxd<\/a>,\u201d Clark explains. \u201cYou can see that this film has gone from a small number of logged views to suddenly hundreds and hundreds of reviews on there from young cinephiles who are giving it four-star reviews and five-star reviews and saying, \u2018Where was this film all my life?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Compensation is just one of 100 films Clark has identified that could elicit a similar response. His book The World of Black Film: A Journey Through Cinematic Blackness in 100 Films<\/a> came out earlier this year. The compendium isn\u2019t a collection of \u201cthe greatest,\u201d Clark explains, but a series of personal arguments for significance.<\/p>\n \u201cI wanted to present something that was quite subjective and potentially contentious,\u201d says Clark, who has Jamaican heritage, was born and raised in the U.K. and now lives in the United States. \u201cOne of the things with the book that I\u2019m trying to gently push back against is a sort of reflexive conflation of Black film with American film.\u201d<\/p>\n Included in the book are Ibrahim Shaddad\u2019s 1964 film Hunting Party<\/a> (a thesis film by a 19-year-old Sudanese filmmaker in Germany); Flora Gomes\u2019 1988 Mortu Nega (the first film produced in independent Guinea-Bissau); and Jordan Peele\u2019s 2017 breakout Get Out. Clark\u2019s essays are unpretentious, chatty and very personal, knitting together a chronological network of influences and ideas.\u00a0<\/p>\n The book\u2019s films span 30 countries and 111 years. Like Compensation before its restoration and theatrical release, not all 100 are readily available to all audiences.\u00a0<\/p>\n YBCA has yet to bring back a full film program<\/a>, but cinephiles will be pleased to hear of at least one substantive series on the horizon: Clark will return this fall for a weekly program drawn from the pages of The World of Black Film. Subtitled \u201cRevolutions,\u201d the Nov. 14\u2013Dec. 19 series will focus on films from the 1960s to the early 1980s \u2014 when decolonization movements and radical politics led to greater numbers of Black filmmakers. (Mortu Negra, recently restored, will screen Dec. 5.)<\/p>\n \u201cI hope that everything in the book one day does become available,\u201d Clark says. \u201cAnd if my book can play some role in helping that become the case, I\u2019d be absolutely delighted.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"bright](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/wbf_ashley-clark.png\")
Ashley Clark\u2019s \u2018The World of Black Film\u2019 was published by Laurence King Publishing in February 2026.<\/p>\n