A companion piece to Pelourinho: They Don’t Really Care About Us (NYFF57), King of Sanwi continues Akosua Adoma Owusu’s exploration of Michael Jackson as a global pop icon. Here, Michael’s long affinity with the African continent—from the Jackson 5’s arrival in Senegal in 1974 to Michael’s coronation as an Ivorian king in 1992—is captured in vibrant, fuzzy archival video, made visceral by Owusu’s funky audiovisual collage and richly material direct animation effects.

A companion piece to Pelourinho: They Don’t Really Care About Us (NYFF57), King of Sanwi continues Akosua Adoma Owusu’s exploration of Michael Jackson as a global pop icon. Here, Michael’s long affinity with the African continent—from the Jackson 5’s arrival in Senegal in 1974 to Michael’s coronation as an Ivorian king in 1992—is captured in vibrant, fuzzy archival video, made visceral by Owusu’s funky audiovisual collage and richly material direct animation effects.
2020-09-17
8
6.3Prince Akeem Joffer is set to become King of Zamunda when he discovers he has a son he never knew about in America – a street savvy Queens native named Lavelle. Honoring his royal father's dying wish to groom this son as the crown prince, Akeem and Semmi set off to America once again.
6.2The second-half of the movie picks up in the present day, seven years later, with Ryan returning home from being on the road touring as a professional singer and Molly working at her father's corporation.
6.1Dueling high school debate champs who are at odds on just about everything forge ahead with ambitious plans to get into the colleges of their dreams.
7.0Jerry Maguire used to be a typical sports agent: willing to do just about anything he could to get the biggest possible contracts for his clients, plus a nice commission for himself. Then, one day, he suddenly has second thoughts about what he's really doing. When he voices these doubts, he ends up losing his job and all of his clients, save Rod Tidwell, an egomaniacal football player.
7.0Freshman star quarterback Drayton struggles with the weight of expectations after a devastating setback, while dancer Dallas begins to question the future she thought she wanted. As their high school relationship begins to unravel under the pressures of distance and self-discovery, they’ll learn that the bravest versions of themselves emerge when they let life redirect them.
6.8A female wildlife photographer arrives on an East African reservation where a group of men trap wild animals for zoos and circuses.
7.6The autobiography of a Somalian nomad who was sold in marriage at 13, fled from Africa a while later to become finally an American supermodel and is now at the age of 38, the UN spokeswoman against female genital mutilation.
6.2They've swapped Christmas – again. Can Hayley and James' relationship survive another turbulent family Christmas or has their future together gone off-piste?!
6.0A driven American exec heads to Paris determined to acquire a champagne brand by Christmas — and accidentally falls for the heir to the bubbly empire.
7.1Simba idolizes his father, King Mufasa, and takes to heart his own royal destiny. But not everyone in the kingdom celebrates the new cub's arrival. Scar, Mufasa's brother—and former heir to the throne—has plans of his own. The battle for Pride Rock is ravaged with betrayal, tragedy and drama, ultimately resulting in Simba's exile. With help from a curious pair of newfound friends, Simba will have to figure out how to grow up and take back what is rightfully his.
6.8All-stars from previous installments convene in glittering Las Vegas, battling for a victory that could define their dreams and their careers.
7.4An unassuming high schooler finds himself inexplicably drawn to the free-spirited new girl, whose unconventional ways change how they see themselves…and their world.
7.0In 18th-century France, a young man masquerades as an actor to avenge his friend's murder.
7.4Based on the true story of Robin, a handsome, brilliant and adventurous man whose life takes a dramatic turn when polio leaves him paralyzed.
6.2Dallas, a burdened but headstrong dancer, is determined to get into the best dance school in the country—her late mother’s alma mater. However, that dream is suddenly derailed when the cheeky yet secretly grieving football star, Drayton, crashes into her life with a unique story of his own. Will the two of them be able to grow into their dreams together, or will their dreams be sidelined?
6.8Madea's back - hallelujer! And she's not putting up with any nonsense as family drama erupts at her great-grandson's college graduation celebration.
7.2Tells the life story of Danish author Karen Blixen, who at the beginning of the 20th century moved to Africa to build a new life for herself. The film is based on her 1937 autobiographical novel.
5.9Writer Harry Street reflects on his life as he lies dying from an infection while on safari in the shadow of Mount Kilimanjaro.
7.6An ex-mercenary turned smuggler. A Mende fisherman. Amid the explosive civil war overtaking 1999 Sierra Leone, these men join for two desperate missions: recovering a rare pink diamond of immense value and rescuing the fisherman's son, conscripted as a child soldier into the brutal rebel forces ripping a swath of torture and bloodshed countrywide.
7.5A young man with a bright future suffers a near-fatal accident and recreates his new life with the help of an unlikely animal friend.
7.2In the final days of the American Civil War, an emigre Hungarian military officer attempts to map the situation of the enemy. Many veterans of the 1848 War of Independence in Hungary fought on the northern side. Experienced Fiala, Boldogh who struggles with homesickness and the reckless Vereczky all experience their enforced emigration in different ways and news of impending peace elicits different reactions from them all.
2.0A Marxist-Leninist-Maoist revision of the Allegory of the Cave, filled with talking animals who shall be late and bourgeois queens who would like to see you without a head, exactly as Plato intended.
7.0It tells the story of a boy Kumasenu who moves to the city of Accra from a small fishing village, encouraged by his cousin Agboh's exaggerated tales of the wonders of city life. Hungry, he steals bread and is caught by police, but is rescued by a doctor and his wife who find him work. Agboh attempts to get Kumasenu to rob the doctor, but Kumasenu foils his cousin's plans.
6.6A surreal, moody short about the fetishisation of automobiles and auto accidents.
0.0We were slightly feverish when we started working with a particular color process. At the development, we had obtained wonderful tones of blue and yellow as well as colored solarizations. Thus, this process was used for 15 days then the fever subsided. At that time they listened to the music of Gilbert and Lewis, and that is why they put a piece on the soundtrack.
0.0It is set in the hustle and bustle of the city of Accra and its suburbs with glimpses of the exciting metropolis of London.
WHAT YOU MEAN WE is a surreal short film by experimental artist Laurie Anderson.
5.0A man without his own half of the body is looking for the other half in the opposite sex. As for the integrity of his body, so for the sake of emotional healing.
6.8Entrusted by his father to a group of gold-miners, an albino child embodies all of their hopes.
5.3On stormy night in an ugly urban landscape, Ciro Norte, a scientist with wild hair and thick glasses, straps himself to a chair he's has fashioned with wires: lightening strikes, convulsing him. It seems his experiment has not worked. The next day, he drives his jalopy to a bar, sits alone, and weeps. But suddenly, a vortex sucks him into a dream state where he wanders, escapes man-eating fish, confronts his doppelganger, walks through a field of giant flowers, and comes upon Venus herself, buried up to her shoulders in sand. She is a giant, and she takes him to her breast. He wakes from the vortex, back in the bar, his mood transformed.
7.0How many movies have you seen where at the end the main character wakes up, causing he and the audience to simultaneously realize that everything they witnessed beforehand was "just a dream?" This film takes that principal but instead of deceiving, the story invites you to watch the main characters dream away. As a result, "True Dreams" takes the dream sequence to a whole new level: it lets its audience in on the joke, while they watch the two main characters run around unaware of the reality/fantasy of their surroundings. This film can be viewed via Vimeo at https://vimeo.com/132642294 (password: truedreams)
0.0A male artist indulges in his love of the female form. That love is tainted when the female subjects make a choice to admire their own beauty. A short that loudly echoes society's treatment of black beauty. Infatuation is an experimental short film lasting just over four minutes.
6.3A Japanese salaryman finds his body transforming into a weapon through sheer rage after his son is kidnapped by a gang of violent thugs.
Born in Los Angeles but a New Yorker by choice, Barbara Hammer is a whole genre unto herself. Her pioneering 1974 short film Dyketactics, a four-minute, hippie wonder consisting of frolicking naked women in the countryside, broke new ground for its exploration of lesbian identity, desire and aesthetic.
0.0A taxi driver, a young girl and a backpacker simultaneously experience a wonderful journey in Tokyo, where they find connections to their own homes in Africa, Europe and Southeast Asia.Throughout their journey, they run into the same Japanese woman named Akiko. Meanwhile, a writer in Paris recalls her encounter with Akiko in Tokyo.
A surreal musical comedy set in a world where the avant-garde and the mainstream are reversed.
8.2Made during the height of the Vietnam War, Stan Brakhage has said of this film that he was hoping to bring some clarity to the subject of war. Characteristically for Brakhage there is no direct reference to Vietnam.
5.6Writes Matsumoto, "I used the Erekutoro Karapurosesu (Electro Color Processor), which is mainly used in the field of medicine and engineering, to create moving image textures Metastasis, I was interested in layering images of a simple object and its electronically processed abstraction. The electronic abstract image is manipulated in a certain rhythm, depicting an organic process."