From American Hunger to Points on a Space Age

Four Films by Ephraim Asili

[Double click video to watch full screen]

Many Thousands Gone, 2014 (08:00), 4:3, 16mm film, Filmed on location in Salvador, Brazil (the last city in the Western Hemisphere to outlaw slavery) and Harlem, NY ( an international stronghold of the African Diaspora), Many Thousands Gone draws parallels between a summer afternoon on the streets of the two cities. A silent version of the film was given to jazz multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee to use an interpretive score. The final film is the combination of the images and McPhee’s real time “sight reading” of the score.

Movie Tote, [07:43], Constructed entirely from clips gleaned from the digitized contents of the Prelinger Archives, Movie Tote explores the history of race and class in the United States

American Hunger, 2013 (19:00), 16:9, 16mm film, Oscillating between a street festival in Philadelphia, the slave forts and capitol city of Ghana, and the New Jersey shore, American Hunger explores the relationship between personal experience and collective histories. American fantasies confront African realities. African realities confront America fantasies.

Points on a Space Age, 2007 (33:00), 4:3, video, “A documentary about the Arkestra, but it's one whose presentation reflects the multilevel approach Sun Ra had to music and life in general. Jump cuts and split screens dot the visual stream with home movie footage from the Arkestra in Egypt during the 1970s to the Arkestra of today led by Marshall Allen. Director Ephraim Asili wisely divides the 40 minutes into distinct chapters, illustrating each with band interviews, live footage, visuals of planets and NASA launches, and his voice quoting writings from Ra. The effect is cohesive and vibrant, bringing the gentle, funky and wholly human universe of Sun Ra into a surprisingly contemporary focus. The editing is well done and brings clarity to the narrative, so one doesn't get lost in the stream of images, and the footage is interesting and fun to watch. While Sun Ra is no longer on the planet, this doc sketches the possibility of a continuance of the spirit of Ra with the current Arkestra and, more importantly, ourselves” — Nilan Perera

Artist Bio:

Ephraim Asili, (1979, Roslyn, PA) is a Filmmaker, DJ, and Traveler whose work focuses on the African diaspora as a cultural force. His films have screened in festivals and venues all over the world, including the New York Film Festival, NY; Toronto International Film Festival, Canada; Ann Arbor Film Festival, MI; San Francisco International Film Festival, CA; Milano Film Festival, Italy; International Film Festival Rotterdam, Netherlands; MoMA PS1, NY; LAMOCA, CA; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; and the Whitney Museum, NY. As a DJ, Asili can be heard on his radio program In The Cut on WGXC, or live at his monthly dance party Botanica. Asili currently resides in Hudson, NY, and is a Professor in the Film and Electronic Arts Department at Bard College.