Barnes Cinema: Time by Garrett Bradley
Saturday, May 9, 1 – 4pm
Still from Garrett Bradley’s Time (2020). Courtesy of Amazon Studios
$15; $10 members and students
About the Event
Today’s program features Time (2020), directed by Garrett Bradley, one of the artists featured in our Freedom Dreams exhibition. This powerful documentary follows Sibil Fox Richardson as she fights for the release of her husband, who is serving a 60-year prison sentence. Through lyrical filmmaking and archival imagery, the film meditates on love, endurance, and the temporal weight of incarceration.
The film will be followed by a short lecture and conversation with Chi-ming Yang, a professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania.
This screening is part of a special three-part series curated by Maori Karmael Holmes of BlackStar Projects in conjunction with Freedom Dreams, which brings together film, video, and installations that invite viewers to engage deeply with the memories, dreams, and histories of Black Americans.
Tickets include admission to the Barnes collection and Freedom Dreams.
About the Film
Time (2020)
Directed by Garrett Bradley
What does the weight of time’s passage feel like for a family caught in the jaws of a brutal carceral system? Both a breathtaking cinematic love story and a bruising indictment of American injustice, Garrett Bradley’s Academy Award–nominated feature documentary debut traces the decades-long quest of Sibil Fox Richardson, an indefatigable mother of six and a fiercely outspoken prison abolitionist, to free her husband, Robert, from the Louisiana State Penitentiary, where he is serving a 60-year sentence for robbery. Gracefully interweaving 20 years’ worth of Richardson’s intimate home movies with luminously expressive monochrome footage of her present-day joys and struggles, Bradley crafts in Time a transcendentally poetic, soul-shaking look at the devastating toll of mass incarceration and one family’s extraordinary efforts to stay whole. Rated PG-13
Duration: 81 min.
Watch
Watch the trailer for Time.
About the Artist
Garrett Bradley is an American artist and filmmaker. Her moving-image practice examines history, place, and the racial and economic politics of everyday life. Bradley’s work has earned her an Academy Award nomination, Best Director at Sundance, and a 2025 MacArthur Fellowship. Her 2019 film America is on view in Freedom Dreams.
Speaker
Chi-ming Yang
Yang is a professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania. She received her PhD in English from Cornell University and a BA in comparative literature from Stanford University. Yang specializes in the literary and visual culture of race and empire, with a focus on East-West cultural exchanges stretching from the early modern period to the 18th century, and up to the contemporary moment.
Curator
Maori Karmael Holmes
Holmes is the chief executive and artistic officer of BlackStar Projects and the co-curator of Freedom Dreams. She has organized programs at Anthology Film Archives and the Whitney Museum, as well as exhibitions at ICA and Pearlstein Gallery.
Go Further
Daily Gallery Talks
Every day, our gallery specialists offer talks about the Barnes collection. Learn more about our history, founder, and collection.
Deep Dive: Cézanne’s Still Life
An in-depth discussion about Still Life with Penn MA student Nina Huang. Free with admission; Room 8
Lecture & Book Signing: Soutine with Celeste Marcus
Author Celeste Marcus discusses her new book Chaim Soutine: Genius, Obsession, and a Dramatic Life in Art.