52 minutes / Color
Release: 1995
Copyright: 1993
An homage to the inspirational African-American civil rights leader, SEVEN SONGS FOR MALCOLM X collects testimonies, eyewitness accounts and dramatic reenactments to tell the life, legacy, loves, and losses of Malcolm X.
Featuring interviews with Malcolm's widow Betty Shabazz, Spike Lee, and many other, SEVEN SONGS looks for the meaning behind the resurgence of interest in the man whose X always stood for the unknown.
"What makes Seven Songs so provocative is that Akomfrah shows respect for many different interpretations of Malcolm, suggesting that this revolutionary figure belongs to everybody."—The Chicago Reader
"[SEVEN SONGS FOR MALCOLM X] combines riveting footage of the man himself, extracts from his writing, recollections of his family, friends and fellow activists, with [brief] staged tableaux. It's all here: Malcolm X's charisma, the struggle to clarify his beliefs, and the context in which they evolved... an engrossing portrait."—Geoff Ellis, Time Out (London)
Select Accolades
A film about the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, which was, "in many respects the most significant expression of black radical thought and activism in the 1960s." - Manning Marable, Prof. of History, Columbia Univ.
Stewart Bird, Rene Lichtman and Peter Gessner | 2003 | 55 minutes | Color | English
An engaging and searing examination of the hitherto unexplored relationships between Pan-African culture, science fiction, intergalactic travel, and rapidly progressing computer technology. (from the Jan., 1998 Catalog Supplement)
John Akomfrah | 1997 | 45 minutes | Color | English
John Akomfrah's remarkable meditation about chance, fate and redemption.
John Akomfrah | 2011 | 94 minutes | Color | English
