Refocus isn’t the only film festival in Iowa City this fall. Through the coming week, the Center for Afrofuturist Studies (CAS) is hosting its first film festival under the title Ordinary Survival.
Held from Oct. 29 through Nov. 12, Ordinary Survival: CAS Film Festival is a chance to experience a cinematic journey of films discussing Afrofuturism’s power to persevere and change the future for the better.
For those unfamiliar, the Center for Afrofuturist Studies is an artist residency in Iowa City dedicated to empowering marginalized people by giving artists of color the space to create in an interactive, supportive, community-engaged, rigorous and inclusive environment.
The 26 films in this festival’s line-up come courtesy of the center’s resident artist. The films have themes of exploration of survival in nature through coexistence, confronting trauma, delving into Afrofuturist narratives, highlighting the importance of mutual survival and celebrating unapologetic existence as resistance to white supremacy.
“The tendency in Afrofuturism to gesture towards the horizon of a distant future can overwrite the future that we step into each day,” said Uchechi Anomnachi, an intern at the center. “These amazing films give us some chances to glimpse into the futures people make with the raw materials of everyday life.”
All festival films will be available to view online with a local in-person screenings also taking place at Public Space One (538 S. Gilbert St) in Iowa City on Nov. 3 at 7 p.m. featuring six films by Shahkeem E. Williams, Akwi Nji, Aryel R. Jackson and Johanna Makabi.
Following that screening, a virtual filmmaker panel and Q&A will take place at 8:30 p.m. There will also be two additional in-person screenings on Nov. 2 in New York City, in collaboration with UnionDocs, and on Nov. 1 in St. Louis, in collaboration with the Luminary.
The six films in the Iowa City in-person screening event include Williams’ Traces of Yarrow which explores a young couple facing terrible odds and their experience with intergenerational and gendered violence in their own city.
Nji’s film cor·re·spond·ence, according to Anomnachi, is a dance of letters between “here” and “home,” inspired by transatlantic family letters, inviting reflection on the role of written communication in the quest for connection and a sense of home.
A Laundry Day from Makabi is a rom-com portrayal of a young Black girl at a laundromat who is met with haunting photos of deceased Black men, addressing the premature deaths of young Black men and the rising number of single, educated Black women in America.
A Welcoming Place by Jackson sews together a poetic narrative from conversations with Black and Latinx Austinites, focusing on advice for newcomers and exploring their relationships with the city of Austin.
Also from Jackson is Shifting Stars, a brief film featuring a moving globe of soil with embedded rocks, paired with NASA space sounds and an oral reading of James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time, serving as a reminder to Black people about embracing hope and not fearing the unknown.
Grace is Makabi’s film about a 9-year-old girl navigating grief and not fitting in, drawing inspiration from Sun Ra’s ‘If You Find Earth Boring.’
More information about the event and screening is available on the Public Space One website.
