Three Songs on Pain, Time and Light

Black Audio Film Collective / Trevor Mathison & Edward George
,
UK
,
1995
,
video
,
25'

A rarely seen video portrait of black British artist Donald Rodney (1961-1998), who suffered from Sickle Cell Anaemia. The video uses a mixture of home movies, studio and location based tableaux, interviews and testimonies to examine how he uses his art to come to terms with constant pain.

The Last Angel Of History

Black Audio Film Collective / John Akomfrah
,
UK
,
1995
,
video
,
45'

The Last Angel of History is a sci-fi documentary about Africa, history and memory. Legend has it that in the 1930s itinerant blues man Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil in order to play the blues. What Johnson got in return for his soul was a black secret: technology which would produce the history of black music. 200 years into the future another itinerant figure, the Data Thief, sells his soul for the knowledge of his future. He has been told to go to the past (our present) and unearth black culture’s speculations about the future. Piece together these speculations and you will find the secret of the black secret technology which will unlock your future. The Last Angel Of History takes us on a voyage, from the margins of black culture to its interstellar heart. The film charts a new interface, striking up connections and dialogues between diverse black interstellar parties who have so much in common, and yet for the most part remain unaware of each other’s existence from Sun Ra to Nichelle Nichols, George Clinton to Lee Perry, A Guy Called Gerald, Goldie and Underground Resistance. John Akomfrah: “Last Angel proved conclusively to both me and Trevor that you could actually use your own sounds to bring these worlds into being.”