Spectral Grounds, Black Experimental Film (September 19-25, 2022) is a screening of moving image works by Black women and nonbinary filmmakers across generations from the dispersed territories of the Black diaspora—continental and otherwise. The program features works which trade illusory and often violent certainties for unwieldy terrains and troubled waters. They practice experimentation at the level of film, but also, necessarily, at the level of existence, as part of an endless repertoire and arsenal of Black survival. Inhabiting spectral grounds means making grounding a verb rather than a name—a quest for provisional anchors and reprieves, rather than for permanence or mastery.

Poster still: The Season of Burning Things (Jama, Ghouled, 9 mins, United Kingdom)

Excerpts in the trailer from (in order of appearance): 

• An Ode to A Time I Loved Bread (Ngelime, 2021, 11’, Belgium)

• Life and Death (Dumas, 2019, 6’, Trinidad and Tobago)

• Fannie’s Film (Woods, 1981, 15’, USA)

• A Mother’s Body (Twum, 2020, 8’, Sweden)

• The Season of Burning Things (Jama, Ghouled, 9 mins, United Kingdom)

• Dead As A Dodo (Habiballa, 2022, 5’, Sudan)

• He who was shared (Mujinga, 2016, 10’, DRC)

• Solomon Riley Presents Negro Coney Island (Dozier, 2021, 10’, USA)

These are but a few of the wonderful films included. See the full program and the website archive here.

Free and available worldwide. Curated by Culture Art Society (CAS) and Monangambee, with the support of the British Council.