A founding member of the Black Audio Film Collective, Akomfrah has explored Black life in Britain and beyond through acute observational films.
John Akomfrah
Kwame Nkrumah’s Legacy in Film
From documentaries to ethnographic approaches to a prestige Netflix show, a look at different depictions of the Ghanaian revolutionary.
Stream Afrofuturist Gems, Including John Akomfrah’s The Last Angel of History
Here are some important titles you should seek out in the Criterion Channel’s Afrofuturism series.
Experimental Films Contemplate the Future From an “Endangered Present”
After Civilization, a free, month-long film series presented by Maysles Documentary Center, explores broader questions of what if and what now.
An Essential Watchlist of Groundbreaking Black Documentaries
These films illustrate both the undeniable threat of white supremacist capitalist patriarchy and the incomparable strength of Blackness.
Honoring the Art of the Archival Film
At the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, the Re-Releasing History program presented a dazzling array of movies built from found footage and more.
Making Room to Take In the Depth of John Akomfrah’s “Vertigo Sea”
The three-channel film is a story of how humans are ultimately reductionists in our relationship to the ecology — in a world that feels like it is too much for us, we aim to cut it down to a digestible size.
Six Shows in Sharjah Challenge Curators to Look Beyond the Usual Suspects
Part I of two reports from the 2018 Spring Exhibitions and the March Meeting in Sharjah.
John Akomfrah Discusses Channeling J.M.W. Turner and Disasters at Sea
“The Deluge,” a monumental Turner painting showing a Biblical flood, is currently paired with Akomfrah’s “Vertigo Sea” at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
How the Black Audio Film Collective Remixed Fact and Fiction
Active between 1982 and 1998, the collective made over a dozen films about the personal and political experiences of people of color living in Britain.
Radical Art from the Past Decade, from Tahrir Square to Recife
In MoMA’s Unfinished Conversations, artists around the world engage with today’s political struggles while exposing their personal, cultural, and historical roots.
The Violence of the British Slave Trade, as Told Through the Sea
John Akomfrah’s Tropikos, showing at the Pérez Art Museum Miami, navigates the United Kingdom’s role in the slave trade and the inherently formidable power of the sea.