Projects matching: Jenn Nkiru

Synopsis

Black history and modern-day architecture intertwine in a meditative new film about Manchester. Created by the visionary British artist and filmmaker Jenn Nkiru, THE GREAT NORTH pays homage to the people and cultures that make up a city. Taking Manchester’s industrial history as a starting point, THE GREAT NORTH moves through the city’s Black communities and spaces – from living rooms in Moss Side to social clubs and community centres in Hulme. THE GREAT NORTH is the story of Manchester told through its Black, Asian and Irish communities, spanning outwards to the North of England and the rest of the world. Official Selection International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) 2025 Official Selection BlackStar Film Festival 2025

Synopsis

A "black imaginary repository”, a container space for our collective black imaginaries that exist outside of time + space that honours the legacy of Seneca Village, a 19th-century settlement (1825-1857) which stood on black-owned land, known today as Central Park in NYC. Official Selection BlackStar Film Festival 2022

Synopsis

Described by Nkiru as what a relic finding of a Detroiter’s public access TV watching patterns which make up the constellation of Techno might be, BLACK TO TECHNO, through a visually rich and diverse collage of intersecting narratives, conceptual frameworks, archival references and original imagery, asserts Techno not just as a musical gesture but as a philosophical, sonic and anthropological one; a model for the overcoming of alienation, the undoing of oppositions: between the individual and the means of production, body and tool, soul and machine. Official Selection International Film Festival Rotterdam 2020 - Perspectives - World premiere

Synopsis

The visuals created for Kamasi Washington’s modern jazz classic 'Hub Tones' invoke ideas of Amiri Baraka’s Nation Time and the immediate ecstatic connection Nkiru had to the rhythms of 'Hub Tones'. The main inspiration behind the film comes from a traditional ceremony called Oboni from the Ikwerre tribe - Nkiru’s tribe by heritage - whereby through repetition of movement and instrumentation, those in the material realm (this realm) go through a process of channelling divine ancestral connection into the spiritual realm. With each transmission and changing tone of the music, those taking part go deeper and deeper into a hypnotic and transcendent state until reaching a climax in the spiritual space. HUB TONES is a visual and spiritual ode to this experience. Official Selection International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) 2020 - Perspectives

Synopsis

The story of the sacred youth and the stakes of a cosmic journey. Where the embodiment and the pain, pleasure and sublimation there-in are non-negotiable. Official Selection Sundance Film Festival 2019 - US Narrative Short Films - World premiere

Synopsis

Exploring the magic and dynamism of Blackness in a realm where time and space are altered. The now, the past and the future are rethought and reordered to create something soulful and mindbendingly visceral.