Give the gift of Criterion!
Live stream preview

Watch this video and more on The Criterion Channel

Watch this video and more on The Criterion Channel

Start your free trial Learn more

Already subscribed? Sign in

Afrofuturism

Introducing Afrofuturism

16m

This introduction by Criterion curatorial director Ashley Clark was recorded in 2020.

Up Next in Afrofuturism

  • Space Is the Place
    1:21:41
    Space Is the Place

    Space Is the Place

    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 comment...

  • Born in Flames
    1:20:39
    Born in Flames

    Born in Flames

    Directed by Lizzie Borden • 1983 • United States
    Starring Honey, Adele Bertei, Jean Satterfield

    The film that rocked the foundations of the 1980s underground, this postpunk provocation is a DIY fantasia of female rebellion set in America ten years after a social-democratic cultural revolution. W...

  • Ornette: Made in America
    1:17:26
    Ornette: Made in America

    Ornette: Made in America

    Directed by Shirley Clarke • 1985 • United States
    Starring Ornette Coleman

    This 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...

×