Sermons and Sacred Pictures

SERMONS AND SACRED PICTURES profiles Reverend L.O. Taylor, a Memphis-based Baptist minister who in the 1930s and 40s built a fiery reputation by lacing his sermons with parables, fables and dramatic visual descriptions. Taylor was also an inspired photographer and filmmaker with a keen interest in preserving a visual and aural record of the fabric of black American life. He photographed and filmed businesses and schools, the National Baptist Convention, baptisms, funerals, and individuals in the quiet dignity of their everyday lives. Over the years he compiled an extraordinary record of Southern black life before the Civil Rights movement. This film is an innovative combination of Taylor’s films and audio recordings, images of contemporary Memphis, and commentary by his widow and others who knew him, forming an intertwined narrative about the pioneering documentarian and social activist. Taylor emerges as a man of humor, piety and intelligence, vibrantly involved in the community he loved. Supported by a Pioneer Fund Grant for Emerging Documentary Filmmakers and a Film Arts Foundation Development Grant. “Sermons and Sacred Pictures has a magical quality….It brings to life the work of Rev.. Taylor through his community filmmaking efforts. The film in turn affirms African-American identity and spirit.” Elaine Charnov, Margaret Mead Film Festival “Fans of Spencer Williams’ The Blood of Jesus should be fascinated by this half hour documentary…among the highlights of the Margaret Mead Film Festival.” J. Hoberman, Village Voice This penetrating and moving documentary by Lynne Sachs, herself a Memphis native, uses Taylor’s own images and sound recordings, together with reminiscences by his widow and circle of friends and colleagues, to create a portrait of a community leader who embodied the earliest stirrings of the civil rights movement, as well as a sobering image of contemporary Memphis at the century’s violent end. (Museum of Modern Art) Supported by a Pioneer Fund Grant for Emerging Documentary Filmmakers and a Film Arts Foundation Development Grant. Recent news: Tributaries: Zora Neale Hurston and Other Chroniclers of the Deep South A Road Three Hundred Years Long: Cinema and the Great Migration, Museum of Modern Art, 2015 Screenings and Festivals include: Museum of Modern Art, New York “Best Short Documentary” Athens (Ohio) Film Festival CINE Golden Eagle Margaret Mead Film Festival Robert Flaherty Film Seminar American Anthropological Association honoree Black Cultural Expo (Memphis) honoree National Education Film Festival Award “Best Documentary” Sinking Creek Film Festival, Nashville WKNO Memphis, WYBE Philadelphia In the library collections of:  Duke,  Los Angeles Public Library, Memphis State University, Newark Public Library, Northwestern,  New York University, Reed College , Stanford and Temple