Watch - Tracing Chicago origins of ‘Something Good,’ a recently discovered film clip depicting first onscreen kiss between two African-Americans - Free Movies and Tv Series

CHICAGO Barry Jenkins, an Oscar winning director and producer, said the film left him speechless. The award-winning actress Viola Davis shared it on her Instagram page with the comment: "love, love, love this!" The grainy black-and-white clip is simple enough – two African-American actors playfully embracing and kissing for 29 seconds. But soon after it was posted, the clip went viral, sparking an online conversation about the way black love has been depicted on screen. In fact, the silent film "Something Good – Negro Kiss," was likely shot in 1898 here in Chicago, in the neighborhood now known as the South Loop, said Allyson Nadia Field, an associate professor of film and media studies at the University of Chicago, who helped bring the film to attention. Earlier this month, the film was added to the Library of Congress' National Film Registry because it may be the first known on-screen kiss between African-Americans. It is significant, in part, because it was filmed during a time when the only on-screen depictions of black residents were racist caricatures, Field said. Because of the time period when the film was made, it was most likely supposed to be a comedy – mocking African-Americans for white audiences. But the image the film shows of Saint Suttle and Gertie Brown affectionately holding hands and kissing pushes back at the dehumanizing stereotypes it was intended to portray, Field said. "It asserts such a strong sense of humanity and love and joy," she said. "They are not the butt of a joke. They are not a punchline. They are just them and that's really radical for the time." The silent film was discovered by Dino Everett, a film archivist at the University of Southern California, at an estate sale in Louisiana three years ago. When he viewed it, he was curious about its content and reached out to Field for help deciphering the back story. "I knew right away the film was important," said Everett, who is the archivist of the USC Hugh M. Hefner Moving Image Archive. "It's hard not to love this film. Race (of the actors) makes it important, but it's joyful to begin with. It's important not because it's from a famous director, or because it features two stars; it's important because of what it shows us about life 120 years ago. There were so many negative stereotypes, this counters that with wonderful imagery." Using clues like the type of material used for the film, the two were able to figure out where the film was shot, where it was sold and how it was likely used. According to Field, the silent film was created by William Selig, a Chicago-based pioneer in the moving picture industry. Selig sold his motion films through the Sears catalog, which is the paper trail Field and Everett used to figure out the title of the film and when it was made. Before he made films, Selig performed in minstrel shows, which is likely how he had connections to black performers. At the time, Suttle was a well-known composer, songwriter and entertainer and Brown was also a vaudeville actress and Suttle's dance partner. It appears that the film was impromptu and was most likely intended to parody "The Kiss," the first onscreen kiss, which starred Mae Irwin. "They were able to get away with this passion on screen because there was a presumption of comedy," Field said. "Because of the racism, this wouldn't have been seen as a radical presentation. There was a resistance to showing black love on screen in this early period ... people worried about audience reactions, especially the Southern market." So the film was likely shown with other live performances and movies that were steeped with racist tropes and overtones. Because films weren't really archived, it was lost to history until Everett's discovery. Online, the short clip sparked a conversation about lost images of black joy and the lack of current films that show affection between African-American characters. For Karla Fuller, who teaches a course on Chicago film history at Columbia College, the film is a reminder that this city has a long history in the movie industry. "A lot of people don't appreciate the fact that Chicago was a major film production center prior to Hollywood. My students are shocked to learn that," she said. "The filmmakers here – like Selig – were the leaders of the industry." Terri Francis, the director of the Black Film Center/Archive at Indiana University called the film the best movie of 2018, in part because of the public reaction. "The public response shows us that people are hungry to see playfulness, tenderness and love between black characters on the screen," she said. When it was filmed, the movie may have had racist overtones, Francis said. But today it is being redefined and embraced with a new interpretation, she said. "It brings with it a lot of very important questions on how we interpret the past in our present, who gets to tell the story and how many different stories are out there that we don't know about," she said.