Phyllis Klotman

Phyllis R. Klotman was professor emerita in the Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies at Indiana University Bloomington. She founded the Black Film Center & Archive (BFCA) in 1981 within the department, establishing the world's only repository dedicated exclusively to collecting, preserving, and promoting Black cinema. As a professor of English specializing in Black literature, Klotman collected independent Black films and created a center in the Midwest for their research and study, sharing materials with the broader community. She rooted the BFCA in the histories and struggles of Black Studies formed at Indiana University and nationally, addressing the longstanding underrepresentation of Black voices in film history and academic curricula. Klotman organized workshops and festivals that connected West Coast Hollywood directors, East Coast auteurs, educators, and cultural leaders in Indiana. She taught Indiana University's first course in Black literature and a major survey course introducing the Black film canon, which she helped shape as a film preservationist.

Klotman's major contributions include the publication of Frame by Frame: A Black Filmography (1979), a comprehensive resource on Black films; founding the Black Camera newsletter, which evolved into Black Camera: An International Film Journal; and conducting oral history interviews with pioneering Black filmmakers such as Larry Clark, Kathleen Collins, Julie Dash, Charles Burnett, Marlon Riggs, and Zeinabu irene Davis, with transcripts and recordings available at the BFCA. She also authored Another Man Gone: The Black Runner in Contemporary Afro-American Literature (1977) and co-edited Struggles for Representation: African American Documentary Film and Video (Indiana University Press, 1999). Klotman served as Dean of Women's Affairs at Indiana University Bloomington from 1986 to 1993. Her profound impact is recognized through the naming of a classroom and screening venue as the Phyllis Klotman Room at the BFCA facility in 2012 and the Phyllis Klotman Outstanding Thesis/Dissertation Award offered by the Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies.