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Chameleon Street (4K Restoration)

Fri, Jan 28 / 7pm
Sat, Jan 29 / 4:45pm
Sun, Jan 30 / 8pm
Tue, Feb 1 / 9:15pm
Thu, Feb 3 / 9:15pm
Sat, Feb 5 / 2pm
Wed, Feb 9 / 7pm
Directed by Wendell B. Harris, Jr.
1990, USA, 94 min

Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 1990 Sundance Film Festival—yet criminally underseen for over three decades—Chameleon Street recounts the improbable but true story of Michigan con man Douglas Street, the titular “chameleon” who successfully impersonated his way up the socioeconomic ladder by posing as a magazine reporter, an Ivy League student, a respected surgeon, and a corporate lawyer. Elevated by a dexterous performance and daring direction from multi-hyphenate actor-writer-director Wendell B. Harris Jr., the film pins a lens on race, class and performance in American identity, which has lost none of its relevance. At once piercingly funny and aesthetically mischievous, Chameleon Street is a “lost masterpiece of Black American cinema” (BFI) long overdue to take its rightful place in the independent film canon.

Newly restored in 4K from the original camera negative under the supervision of Wendell B. Harris Jr.

Reviews

Harris, starring in the lead role, gives us a Black Tom Ripley, the most unforgettable underclass antihero this side of Mike Leigh’s 1993 Naked[.]
- Nick Pinkerton, Artforum 
The film addresses issues of race, economics, sex, anger and pride in ways that are both savagely funny and poignant.
- Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
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ABOUT US

The Winnipeg Film Group is an artist-run education, production, exhibition and distribution centre committed to promoting the art of cinema.
our location

We’re located in the heart of Winnipeg's historic Exchange District in the Artspace building. We are across the street from Old Market Square at the corner of Arthur Street and Bannatyne - one block west of Main.

The Winnipeg Film Group is located on Treaty 1 Territory and on the ancestral lands of the Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota and Dene Peoples and in the homeland of the Métis Nation. We offer our respect and gratitude to the traditional caretakers of this land.

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