The Whitney Review presents: Coffy

Director: Jack Hill

1973 / 91min / DCP

Author and producer Brandon Harris joins Metrograph after the launch of the fourth issue of The Whitney Review of New Writing to present Jack Hill’s 1973 Blaxploitation thriller Coffy starring Pam Grier, followed by a post-screening discussion with Harris, Maya Kotomori, Kiernan "Knives" Francis, and ThugPop.

“In Coffy, Pam Grier is vengeance incarnate—a nurse-turned-avenger slicing through the heroin economy with style, smarts, and a sawed-off shotgun, struts through a corrupt Los Angeles like a grenade with its pin pulled—disguising herself with wigs and weaponizing her body against the pimps and pushers poisoning her community. Hill stages the carnage with a pop-art kineticism that feels both of its time and somehow timeless. For all her power, Coffy remains framed—sometimes literally—by the male gaze, her agency too often upstaged by spectacle. Yet Grier transcends the exploitation, her raw charisma demanding respect in a Black Power fantasy and a grindhouse quickie where politics and pulp collide.” — Brandon Harris