Directed by John Coney • 1974 • United States
Starring Sun Ra, Barbara Deloney, Raymond Johnson
Avant-jazz mystic Sun Ra brought his pioneering Afrofuturist vision to the screen with this film version of his concept album. It’s a wild, kaleidoscopic whirl of science fiction, sharp social commentary, goofy pseudo-blaxploitation stylistics, and thrilling concert performance, in which the pharaonic Ra and his Arkestra lead an intergalactic movement to resettle the Black race on their utopian space colony.
Up Next in Afrofuturism
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Ornette: Made in America
Directed by Shirley Clarke • 1985 • United States
Starring Ornette ColemanThis freewheeling documentary captures Ornette Coleman’s evolution over three decades. Documentary footage, dramatic scenes, and some of the first music-video-style segments ever made chronicle his boyhood in segregated T...
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Welcome II the Terrordome
Directed by Ngozi Onwurah • 1995 • United Kingdom
Starring Suzette Llewellyn, Saffron Burrows, Felix JosephNgozi Onwurah’s radically ahead-of-its-time Afrofuturist vision WELCOME II THE TERRORDOME made history as the first theatrically distributed British feature directed by a Black woman. Neve...
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The Upsetter: The Life and Music of L...
Directed by Ethan Higbee and Adam Bhala Lough • 2008 • United States
Starring Lee “Scratch” Perry, Peter Tosh, Benicio Del ToroVisionary record producer and dub innovator Lee “Scratch” Perry—who defined the sound of reggae through his pioneering work with artists like Bob Marley and the Wailers...
