Sketches and Portraits for Jean-Michel
“Sketches and Portraits for Jean-Michel was photographed on the streets of Brooklyn and Manhattan, two areas familiar to Basquiat, and visually explores many of the themes and influences found in his paintings: street life, street art, politics, jazz, bodies in motion, bodies at rest, life, death, and black resilience.” – The Barbican
Ephraim Asili
Director
Also Directed by Ephraim Asili
Oscillating between a street festival in Philadelphia, the slave forts and capitol city of Ghana, and the New Jersey shore, American Hunger, explores the relationship between personal experience and collective histories. American fantasies confront African realities. African realities confront America fantasies. African fantasies confront American realities. American realities confront African fantasies…
Based on real events, the film’s protagonist inherits a house in West Philadelphia that becomes home to an urban collective for activists of color. The increasingly claustrophobic drama unfolds as the group attempts to live together and find consensus through Black political discourse and social philosophy.
Points on a Space Age explores the recent activity of the remaining members of the influential Sun Ra Arkestra since the passing of its founding member, Sun Ra and examines their current work (in the physical absence of Sun Ra) under the direction of Marshall Allen.
Filmed on location in Harlem (NY) and Ethiopia, Forged Ways oscillates between the first person account of a filmmaker, a man navigating the streets of Harlem, and the day to day life in the cities and villages of Ethiopia.
A portrait of Alexander Calder's "Five Swords" as well as a tribute to a friend and mentor that I recently lost, filmmaker Peter Hutton.
Shot in Detroit and Windsor, Fluid Frontiers is the culmination of Ephraim Asili's project exploring the artist's relationship with the African Diaspora, structured around unrehearsed readings of poems originally published by the Detroit-based Broadside Press.
Constructed entirely from clips gleaned from the digitized contents of the Prelinger Archives, MOVIE TOTE explores the history of race and class in the United States.
Street scenes from Salvador, Brazil and Harlem, New York.
Shot in Hudson NY and Accompong, Jamaica. Accompong, Jamaica was founded in 1739 after rebel slaves and their descendants fought a protracted war with the British leading to the establishment of a treaty between the two sides. The treaty signed under British governor Edward Trelawny granted Cudjoe’s Maroons 1500 acres of land between their strongholds of Trelawny Town and Accompong in the Cockpits and a certain amount of political autonomy and economic freedoms.Cudjoe, a leader of the Maroons, is said to have united the Maroons in their fight for autonomy under the Kindah Tree—a large, ancient mango tree that is still standing.
