IN CINEMA

VOICES OF THE GODS +
A.I. AFRICAN INTELLIGENCE
Screening: Friday, March 28th 7PM
Tickets: $15 General Admission / $7 Reduced Price

New and old encounters with African cultures, religions, and spiritualities as seen in the films of veteran filmmakers Al Santana and Manthia Diawara.

A new 2K digitization:
VOICES OF THE GODS (1985)
And a new release:
A.I. AFRICAN INTELLIGENCE (2023)

Co-presented with Third World Newsreel

VOICES OF THE GODS

Al Santana, Howard Moss, 60 mins

VOICES OF THE GODS foregrounds the Akan and Yoruba religions, two West African traditions practiced within the United States. It looks at their cosmologies, use of music, dance, and medicine in various ceremonies and rituals. The film includes historical and contemporary applications and influences of these religions not only in Black culture but also in secular and mainstream American society and politics more broadly.

al santana

AL SANTANA is a visual artist, independent filmmaker, cinematographer, and still photographer. Over the past 40 years, he has worked on numerous award-winning documentaries, public affairs films and videos including In The Spirit of Peace (2002) Military Option (2005), One People (2007), Blues People (2007), and Salty Dog Blues (2012). Santana holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the CUNY BA program in Sociology and Film, and a Master of Fine Arts degree from National University in Digital Cinema.

A.I. AFRICAN INTELLIGENCE

Manthia Diawara, James Newitt, 110 mins

Granted rare access to Ndeup, a spiritual healing ceremony practiced by Lebou peoples in Senegal, filmmaker and writer Manthia Diawara–with input from a cadre of scientists and academics–wonders what connections, if any, can be made between the possession ritual and Western logic. A.I. African Intelligence imagines generative ways of utilizing and thinking about “machine learning,” which Diawara fears might otherwise elide specific cultural practices like Ndeup.

Scholar, writer and filmmaker MANTHIA DIAWARA is the author of We Won't Budge, Black-American Cinema, African Cinema and the film director of Edouard Glissant, Rouch in Reverse, An Opera of the World, Negritude among many others. Manthia received his education in France and later traveled to the United States for his graduate studies. He has taught at the University of California at Santa Barbara, University of Pennsylvania and is Professor of Comparative Literature and Cinema at New York University

manthia diawara