Director of photography on Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust, John Akomfrah’s documentary Seven Songs for Malcolm X and Spike Lee’s Crooklyn, Arthur Jafa has crafted an oeuvre that also encompasses music, philosophy and science-fiction art. He had a wide-ranging conversation with Black Film Bulletin co-founder June Givanni in London in February 1993, excerpts from which are reproduced here.
With a major exhibition of his work currently on at Tate Britain, we plot a path through the radical, sensuous cinema of British artist and filmmaker Isaac Julien.
Now remastered in 4K, Isaac Julien and Maureen Blackwood’s radical 1980s landmark explores Black feminism and activism, and the cultural exchange between American and British gay culture and nightlife.