The subject matter of Memory Room 451 is the cultural and historical significance of 20th-century hairstyles – the Afro, the conk, dreadlocks – in Black communities on both sides of the Atlantic. Akomfrah has disguised this exploration as a science fiction story – in the manner of the groundbreaking writers profiled in The Last Angel of History – while providing a bravura display of the aesthetics of video art in the 1990s. The tale of visitors from the future who gather dreams from unwitting subjects in order to construct a history of the Black diaspora both defamiliarizes Akomfrah’s ongoing project and points to the danger that extracting history from memory can be a kind of expropriation.
In the face of AAPI violence, an intergenerational coalition of Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, People of Color organizers come together to organize a march across historic Washington Heights and Harlem, as a continuation of the historic and radical Black and Asian solidarity tradition.
A middle-aged science fiction nerd role-plays as his favorite space hero out in the desert when he hits his head and becomes convinced he is a space hero for real.
A battalion, preceded by three riders and a military marching band, parades in front of the crowd. A man is manoeuvring a handcart bearing the inscription "Sunlight Soap" in the foreground.
When Hydro-Québec announced its intention to proceed with the enormous James Bay II hydroelectric project, the 15,000 Cree who live in the region decided to stand up to the giant utility.
Corky, a tough female ex-convict working on an apartment renovation in a Chicago building, meets a couple living next door, Caesar, a paranoid mobster, and Violet, his seductive girlfriend, who is immediately attracted to her.
A middle-aged couple has a drifter enter their lives. The fish-store owners find that the mysterious young man awakens the couple in ways they didn't expect.
Isolated in the bell tower of Notre Dame, Quasimodo longs to experience the world beyond the cathedral walls, despite the wishes of his stern guardian, the Judge of Paris Claude Frollo.
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Have you watched Memory Room 451 yet? What did you think about it?
