Movies: John Akomfrah

Made for the Venice Film Festival's 70th anniversary, seventy filmmakers made a short film between 60 and 90 seconds long on their interpretation of the future of cinema....

This feature-length big screen documentary tells the riotous inside story of the infamous sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll repertory cinema which inspired a generation during Britain's turbulent Thatcher years....

The Black Audio Film Collective’s seventh film envisioned the death and life of the African American revolutionary as a seven part study in iconography as narrated by novelist Toni Cade Bambara and actor Giancarlo Espesito. The stylized tableaux viva...

The tumultuous life of the controversial 1960s black revolutionary (and convicted murderer) Michael X is illustrated by a kaleidoscopic melding of sound and images. The radically discordant free jazz soundtrack provides a surreal counterpoint to the ...

The Black Audio Film Collective’s acclaimed essay film, 'Handsworth Songs', examines the 1985 race riots in Handsworth and London. Interweaving archival photographs, newsreel clips, and home movie footage, the film is both an exploration of documenta...

Part documentary, part personal essay, this experimental film combines archive imagery with the striking wintry landscapes of Alaska to tell the story of immigrant experience coming into the UK from 1960 onwards....

Speak Like a Child, the feature film debut of documentary director John Akomfrah, explores the intense friendship that evolves between three troubled teenagers growing up in an isolated children's home on the Northumbrian coast. The desolate beauty o...

Interviewees discuss the memories, tastes and experiences that they associate with Africa for a personal vision of the continent....

Documentary commemorating the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King's March on Washington, a pivotal moment in the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. The film tells the story of how the march for jobs and freedom began, speaking to the peop...

An examination of the hitherto unexplored relationships between Pan-African culture, science fiction, intergalactic travel, and rapidly progressing computer technology....

A person’s culture is something that is often described as fixed or defined and rooted in a particular region, nation, or state. Stuart Hall, one of the most preeminent intellectuals on the Left in Britain, updates this definition as he eloquently th...

A two part documentary that details the contribution of black and Asian people to television history from the birth of television in 1936 to 1992. Interviewees include: Pearl Connor, Thomas Baptiste, Lenny Henry, Norman Beaton, Horace Ové, Carmen Mun...

Louis Armstrong is one of the most recognizable figures in jazz, with his incomparable trumpet playing and beaming smile. This video profiles Armstrong from his humble beginnings in New Orleans through his career as America's Ambassador of Good Will....

The March is the feature documentary narrated by Denzel Washington about the renowned and historic 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom....

Listening All Night To The Rain continues John Akomfrah’s abiding interest in post-colonialism, ecology and the politics of aesthetics with a renewed focus on the sonic. Drawing its title from Chinese writer and artist Su Dongpo’s (1037 - 1101) poetr...

Goldie, the godfather of drum and bass takes us on a roller coaster ride through his frenetic life. A journey that takes us from Wolver Hampton to Tokyo, Miami to Hong Kong; through his years in council care and his life as a musician and internation...

Tackling the ecological implications of settler colonialism, extractive capitalism and the extinction of microorganisms, this multi-screen installation digs into the oral as well as representational history of various Indigenous cultures....

Short documentary about Pakistani musician, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (1948-1997), leading exponent of Sufi devotional qawwali singing....

Drama about a man who lives in an analogue world but seeks to fulfil his desires in a digital world....

Triptych (2020) is a homage to the the radical, political album, ‘We Insist!’ (1960) by the jazz musician Max Roach – the ideas of which prefigured the themes that became the Civil Rights and anti-apartheid movements. The catalyst for this film was t...