Sonic Textures, Shattered Scenes

A selection of landmark films by Black artists working in independent cinema in the 1970s-90s.

This season showcases truly groundbreaking cinema by artists and thinkers that expanded the ways the Black American experience could be represented, examined, and cherished. These are experimental, personal, and radical films by academics, musicians, poets, writers, actors, photographers, and visual artists who changed cinema forever. In turns thrilling, cerebral, and sensuous, this diverse programme of films spanning various genres are united by invoking the richness of the lives we live. In recent years many of these previously-overlooked films have been restored, and even re-cut, enabling new generations to see these films as they were originally intended.

Please note that many of the films in this season reflect historical attitudes that audiences may find outdated and offensive.

The season title is taken from the article Cosmic Freeze Frames: A Poetics of Bill Gunn by Carlos Valladares on gagosian.com (Spring 2021)

Film

6.30pm £6 (or £30 for season ticket)

Bleek, played by a young Denzel Washington, is an intense, self-centred jazz trumpeter whose ambition alienates everyone around him. He navigates love and art in this kinetic, stylish, and claustrophobic film with an infectious soundtrack from Branford Marsalis Quartet and Terence Blanchard. A mix of smokey jazz clubs, argumentative promoters, animated musicians, and trysts with lovers, this has the irresistibly delicious flavour of independent American cinema of the early ‘90s from an enormously influential filmmaker. Wrongly overlooked in Lee's jam-packed ouevre, Mo' Better Blues is a vivid ode to the art of jazz and its roots in the African American experience.

Spike Lee is one of the most prominent and prolific American filmmakers working today. He launched the careers of some of the most notable actors working today and has made thirty-five feature films under his production company 45 Acres and a Mule. He is a director, producer, screenwriter, actor, activist and author, as well as a tenured professor at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts in the Graduate Film Programme.

Access

This event is inclusive for wheelchair users; our building is wheelchair accessible with lift access to all floors. If you require a wheelchair space, please email info@nottinghamcontemporary.org or phone 0115 948 9750 so we can ensure a space is set up for you.

If you require a free ticket for a carer, please contact us using the details above to arrange this.

This event will take place in The Space. Find information about getting here, our building access and facilities by clicking here.

If you have any questions around access or have specific access requirements we can accommodate, please get in touch with us by emailing info@nottinghamcontemporary.org or phoning 0115 948 9750.