The following is an excerpt from “A Mysterious Time Traveler Returns,” an essay in the new book “John Akomfrah: Signs of an Empire,” published to coincide with a new exhibit on display at the New Museum in New York through September 2.
John Akomfrah’s directorial contributions throughout the ‘90s are linked to the six other names that formed the basis of Black Audio Film Collective: Lina Gopaul, Reece Auguiste, Avril Johnson, Trevor Mathison, David Lawson, and Edward George. Each contributed to the technical atmosphere surrounding the works for which Bafc is known today, taking part in various aspects of filmmaking and channels of distribution—photographs, posters, flyers, and artistic statements. Titles directed by Akomfrah in this period are also associated with the television broadcasting company Channel 4, a public-service channel that participated in the production of “Testament” (1988), “Who Needs a Heart” (1991), “Seven Songs for Malcolm X” (1993), and “The Last Angel...
John Akomfrah’s directorial contributions throughout the ‘90s are linked to the six other names that formed the basis of Black Audio Film Collective: Lina Gopaul, Reece Auguiste, Avril Johnson, Trevor Mathison, David Lawson, and Edward George. Each contributed to the technical atmosphere surrounding the works for which Bafc is known today, taking part in various aspects of filmmaking and channels of distribution—photographs, posters, flyers, and artistic statements. Titles directed by Akomfrah in this period are also associated with the television broadcasting company Channel 4, a public-service channel that participated in the production of “Testament” (1988), “Who Needs a Heart” (1991), “Seven Songs for Malcolm X” (1993), and “The Last Angel...
- 7/2/2018
- by Aram Moshayedi
- Indiewire
One of several S&A 2012 Toronto Interntational Film Festival highlights... British/Ghanaian filmmaker John Akomfrah's lats work, titled Peripeteia, which stars Monique Cunningham, and Trevor Mathison (who appeared in Akomfrah's previous work, The Nine Muses). A quick recap... the description of the film reads: A moving visualization of two characters drawn in the 16th century by Albrecht Dürer - a black male and female whose stories have been ‘lost to the winds of history’. British filmmaker John Akomfrah imagines the lives of a black man and woman who appear in a sixteenth-century drawing by German...
- 10/24/2012
- by Courtney
- ShadowAndAct
One of several S&A 2012 Toronto Interntational Film Festival highlights... British/Ghanaian filmmaker John Akomfrah's latest work, titled Peripeteia. As noted in a previous post, a Google search reveals practically nothing about this new project; his IMDb page doesn't even list it, last I checked. I suppose we'll learn more in coming weeks. But consider the mystery a little less of one with today's reveal: first, I've learned that it's actually Not a feature length work. It's an 18-minute short film that stars Monique Cunningham, Trevor Mathison (who appeared in Akomfrah's last work, The Nine Muses); an secondly, the...
- 8/15/2012
- by Tambay A. Obenson
- ShadowAndAct
Akomfrah's Handsworth Songs attracted a huge audience when shown in the wake of last summer's riots. His new film, The Nine Muses, uses Homer to explore mass migration to Britain
John Akomfrah, widely recognised as one of Britain's most expansive and intellectually rewarding film-makers, has never been afraid of a battle. Back in the 1970s, when he was barely out of his teens, he tried to screen Derek Jarman's homoerotic Sebastiane at the film club of the Southwark further education college, where he was studying. "There were rows. Black kids were throwing chairs everywhere. They were saying 'you can't show this'. So we stopped the film and had a discussion: what do you mean, 'We can't show this film'? It was clear there were forms of propriety for black spectatorship. Rather than run back into the field, I thought: let's just accelerate it. Let's push these boundaries a little bit more.
John Akomfrah, widely recognised as one of Britain's most expansive and intellectually rewarding film-makers, has never been afraid of a battle. Back in the 1970s, when he was barely out of his teens, he tried to screen Derek Jarman's homoerotic Sebastiane at the film club of the Southwark further education college, where he was studying. "There were rows. Black kids were throwing chairs everywhere. They were saying 'you can't show this'. So we stopped the film and had a discussion: what do you mean, 'We can't show this film'? It was clear there were forms of propriety for black spectatorship. Rather than run back into the field, I thought: let's just accelerate it. Let's push these boundaries a little bit more.
- 1/21/2012
- by Sukhdev Sandhu
- The Guardian - Film News
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