Paul Gilroy argues that memories of slavery are manifest (through their metaphorical displacement by lyrics of lost love) in current Black music. Lost love itself is thus the key metaphor in Black popular culture’s commentary on the failed promises of ‘modernity.’ Through a set of vignettes inspired by Gilroy, Voices of our Mothers: Transcending Time and Distance shows how song, oral history, dance and improvisation function as archival and living forms of history.
A hardworking young man bent on saving his sick son must convince a stranger to kill an innocent student or an unknown group will detonate the bomb strapped under his coat.
1966, United States of America: Kennedy is unable to prevent the Cuban Missile crisis in 1962, creating a nuclear winter throughout the country that seems to have no end.
Carlos is an ex-con looking for a job where he earns a lot of money without having to work hard. After discussing it with his cellmate, they conclude that the only work to fit the description is to be politician in Puerto Rico.
WWII American Army Medic Desmond T. Doss, who served during the Battle of Okinawa, refuses to kill people and becomes the first Conscientious Objector in American history to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor.
Knokke, Belgium. A small mundane coastal town, home to the beau-monde. To compete with Venice and Cannes, the posh casino hosts the second ‘World Festival of Film and the Arts’ in 1949, organised in part by the Royal Cinematheque of Belgium.
