COMPENSATION (DVD)

A poignant portrait of Deaf African Americans and the complexities of love at both ends of the twentieth century, Zeinabu irene Daviss film is a groundbreaking story of inclusion and visibility. In dual performances, Michelle A. Banks and John Earl Jelks play an educated dressmaker and an illiterate migrant in 1910s Chicago, and a resilient graphic artist and an endearing librarian living in the same city eight decades later. Employing archival photography, an original score blending ragtime and African percussion, and lyrical editing, Davis deftly intertwines the two couples stories, in ways both tender and tragic. Compensation is a landmark of American independent cinema that confronts the social forces and prejudices that hinder love. DIRECTOR-APPROVED DVD SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES New 4K digital restoration, supervised and approved by director Zeinabu irene Davis, in collaboration with the UCLA Film & Television Archive and Wimmin with a Mission Productions, and in conjunction with