THE Bermuda International Film Festival (BIFF) will this month screen a movie hailed by critics as one of the “100 most essential” of all time.Killer of Sheep is currently breaking art house cinema attendance records in the United States. Directed by Charles Burnett, it examines the black Los Angeles ghetto Watts, in the 1970s through the eyes of one of its residents.

As explained by BIFF spokesperson: “Stan (is) a sensitive dreamer who is growing detached and numb from the psychic toll of working at a slaughterhouse.

“Frustrated by money problems, he finds respite in moments of simple beauty: the warmth of a coffee cup against his cheek, slow dancing with his wife in the living room, holding his daughter.

“The film offers no solutions; it merely presents life - sometimes hauntingly bleak, sometimes filled with transcendent joy and gentle humour.

“Killer of Sheep was shot on location in Watts over a series of weekends on a budget of less than $10,000. Finished in 1977 and shown sporadically, its reputation grew until it won the FIPRESCI (International Critics’) Prize at the 1981 Berlin Film Festival.

“Problems with music clearance meant that the film went unreleased theatrically until this spring - but it has quickly become an art house cinema sensation, breaking the house record at IFC in New York this spring.

“The film was considered such a landmark of American independent and African-American cinema that it was one of the first 50 culturally significant films to be selected for preservation in the Library of Congress by the National Film Registry. The National Society of Film Critics in the US selected it as one of the “100 Essential Films&21; of all time.”

Killer of Sheep will screen on Thursday, June 21 at 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. at the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute. Tickets are $8 for BIFF Film Club members and $10 for non-members, and can be reserved by e-mailing the festival at info@biff.bm.