Retrospective 2022
IFFI 2022 – 13.05.2022
EVERY STAR AND EVERY PLANET IS IN PLACE BUT YOU, PLANET EARTH is derived from Sun Ra’s Afrofuturist Sci-Fi classic SPACE IS THE PLACE (1974) by John Coney. The film is part of this year’s Retrospective, THE MULTIPLE EXPRESSIONS OF AFROFUTURISM curated by Claire Diao for IFFI #31. She presents diverse expressions in her Retrospective that refer to the multi-media interplay between art, film and music and show the extra-terrestrial transformation of Afrofuturism with non-Western positions. One central motif is the injustice that is passed on from generation to generation. The non-linear perception of space and time thereby enhances the formation of new perspectives that strive for a (more) just future and call for agency in present times.
The Multiple Expressions of Afrofuturism
Founded in the United States in the 60s during the Civil Rights Movement, the Afrofuturist movement was launched in order to explore the experiences of African-American and Black characters (“afro”), who were not necessarily offered main roles. Where science-fiction depicts class struggles with inequitable societies through the empowerment of the poorest, Afrofuturism represents societies with discriminations and race struggles where the oppressed free themselves through technology. But the term ’Afrofuturism‘ itself was written for the first time in 1993 by the American scholar and critic Mark Dery, in an article entitled “Black To The Future: Interview with Samuel R. Delany, Greg Tate and Tilcia Rose”.
This movement has been expressed through various media. First was a comic book: issue n°52 of Fantastic Four released in July 1966 by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby starred Black Panther for the first time.
Then, the American jazz composer and poet Sun Ra, born Herman Blount, co-wrote the feature film SPACE IS THE PLACE with Joshua Smith. This trip to another planet with his Arkestra was directed by John Coney and released in 1974. Since then, Afrofuturism has inspired various musicians, such as George Clinton or, more recently, the French artist Gystère in his musicals STRANGE BREATHIN and WOMXN, THE NIGHTMARE OF YOU KNOW WHO.
Cinema has been a fantastic medium to explore this topic, such as Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther adapted by the Marvel Studios in 2018 into the eponymous box-office hit that grossed $1.3 billion dollars worldwide. After Space is The Place came another alien, THE BROTHER FROM ANOTHER PLANET directed by John Sayles in 1984, where a Black character (brilliant mute Joe Morton) with outer-space bounty hunters on his tail arrives in Harlem and comes face-to-face with the situation of immigrants in America.
Ten years later, in the United Kingdom, a British-Nigerian female director, Ngozi Onwurah, directed WELCOME II THE TERRORDROME (1994), the first independent Black British film to be released in theatres. Portraying drug abuse, racism and poverty, Onwurah depicts a hip-hop dystopic science-fiction landscape inspired by her arrival in England: “we had entered another war zone. But we were the only ones to be aware of it.[1]”
From the United States came another Marvel Comic superhero in 1998. It was BLADE, directed by Stephen Norrington, a dark super-hero film starring a Black actor (Wesley Snipes) in the role of a half-vampire and half-mortal. Following its success, a reboot of the film, planned for 2022/2023, will be interpreted by the actor Mahershala Ali.
In 2005, on the African continent, the Cameroonian Jean-Pierre Bekolo hit the headlines with THE BLOODETTES, an Afrofuturist and political satire where vampiric femmes fatales emasculate high-ranking officials. Using the imagery of science-fiction, mixing humour, horror and action, Bekolo attempted to free Africa from “the prison of the imagination”.
From 2008 to 2020, filmmakers dealt with science-fiction and Afrofuturism through short films in a really interesting way. From post-apocalyptic Africa (INHLAWULO by Lamar Bonhomme, South Africa; HASAKI YA SUDA by Cédric Ido, Burkina Faso) to futurist places where there is no water (PUMZI by Wanuri Kahiu, Kenya) or no more humans (WHAT IF GOATS DIE by Sofia Alaoui, Morocco*); from a diver (AL DJAZIRA by Amin Sidi-Boumédiène, Algeria) to an astronaut (ETHEREALITY by Kantarama Gahigiri, Rwanda*) coming from the future. Film is also a way to interrogate the past through robots (ROBOTS OF BRIXTON by Kibwe Tavares, UK), the present through villagers (KEMPINSKI by Neïl Beloufa, France), the near future through mobile devices and bewitched wigs (ZOMBIES by Baloji, Democratic Republic of Congo, and HELLO RAIN by CJ Obasi, Nigeria*), the distant future in a space station (THE GOLDEN CHAIN by Adebukola Bodunrin & Ezra Claytan Daniels, Nigeria) or the miscegenation of realities (PRECES PRECIPITADAS DI UM LUGAR SAGRADO QUE NÃO EXISTE MAIS by Rafael Luan & Mike Dutra, Brazil). And through a satire about the art world in Jim Chuchu’s THIS ONE WENT TO THE MARKET* (Kenya).
While the economy of shorts is easier to manage without an outer space set design (sometimes with really low budgets), features are also a way to narrate other representations of Black characters in the future: in Sharon Lewis’ BROWN GIRL BEGINS (Canada), a Caribbean priestess has to save her people. For British-Ghanaian artist John Akomfrah (THE LAST ANGEL IN HISTORY), data, music and the significance of Afrofuturism is reviewed through a documentary lens. In a crazy film set in Ethiopia, Spanish director Miguel Llansó (CRUMBS) mixes the future with present commercial goodies. While in NEPTUNE FROST, set in Rwanda, American poet and singer Saul Williams and French-Rwandese Anisia Uzeyman use music to recount a love story between an intersex runaway and a coltan miner.
For this year’s Retrospective, it was important to compile different perceptions of Afrofuturism, starting with the United States then moving to other countries, from the 70s to today, from White filmmakers to Arabic, African, Latino or Caribbean ones, just to have an overview of how filmmakers have dealt with these issues. And to ask oneself, would a film shot by a White filmmaker (such as Coney, Sayles or Llansó) be considered as Afrofuturist? Would an Arab director from Morocco (Alaoui) or Algeria (Sidi-Boumédiène) be considered as having produced an “afro” futuristic piece? And, finally, would people name work other continents in the same way, talking about Eurofuturism, Asianfuturism or, in the case of Austria, Austrofuturism? Let’s talk about it!
Claire DIAO / Curator of the Retrospective
The French-Burkinabè journalist and film critic Claire Diao studied economics, political science and film. She is the initiator of the Quartiers Lointains programme, the magazine Awotélé and the company Sudu Connexion. Double Vague: Le nouveau souffle du cinéma français is her first book. She is part of the selection committee of the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs.
[1] Source : https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/onwurah-ngozi-1966
* Those shorts are part of Afrofuturistik, the 6th season of the shortfilm touring programme Quartiers Lointains, which tours every year across France, Africa and the United States.
The IFFI - International Film Festival Innsbruck will take place for its 31st edition at cinematograph-leokino from 24 to 29 May 2022. Selected festival films will be available via IFFI stream on our website from 30 May to 8 June 2022.
