Kino immer anders
Near the coast of Carolina, we witness the 1803 Igbo Landing Mass Suicide where slaves refused the oppression by white Americans by killing themselves.
Sometime in the near future, blacks are forced to live in a huge ghetto named the “Terrordome”. Violence, corruption, and poverty dictate everyday life. In the midst of this slum, we meet Spike and his pregnant white girlfriend Jodie. As her abusive ex-boyfriend tries to get back at him, Spike’s 11-year-old cousin tragically dies. The tension between the oppressed and oppressors erupts.
The film, referencing a song by Public Enemy, was historic as it became the first British movie directed by a black woman to be theatrically distributed. Onwurah creates a bleak Afrofuturist World where killing and poverty are just daily business. She integrates Hip-Hop culture into this underground low-budget production to create a flow unlike anything you have seen before. But Onwurah also doesn’t shy away from delivering an overtly political film, criticizing police brutality, racial discrimination and systematic inequality while also focusing on motherhood. You feel her anger and frustration in every frame right from the mystical retelling of the now confirmed legend at the beginning until the very last image. A powerful, political, angry, and sadly timeless film.
Jérôme Bewersdorf
