The Celebrating Black Futures series is a vibrant showcase of Black and African cinema offering a window into its evolving narratives. In dialogue with the Vancouver Art Gallery’s exhibitions—Firelei Báez and Offsite: Hank Willis Thomas—these films navigate mythical and corporeal realities.
CJ Obasi’s Mami Wata transports us to a fictional West African coastal community torn between reverence and rebellion over a water goddess, Akosua Adoma Owusu’s Drexciya envisions an underwater kingdom born from the resilience of the African diaspora and Ephraim Asili’s The Inheritance reinterprets the revolutionary spirit of MOVE, a Philadelphia-based Black collective.
Kika Memeh, Curator
Co-Presented by
Mami Wata + Drexciya
Fiery Obasi's tremendous, dreamy fable, shot in inky, lustrous black and white, is an elemental tale of magic, devotion, and generational unease set in a traditional Nigerian village.
The Inheritance
The inheritance is a house in Philadelphia bequeathed to Julian by his grandmother. He asks his girlfriend Gwen to move in, and next thing he knows there's an entire collective, The House of Ubutu, a commune that will be a safe space for Black folk.