Critics buried this film in 1995 as overheated; thirty years on, its line from a slave-ship prologue to present-day police violence reads as flatly prescient, and its DIY genre spectacle looks like the ancestor of a whole strand of Black speculative cinema. Onwurah built an entire cosmology on a shoestring, and she is in the room to talk about what it cost her. If you see one restoration this summer that changes what you thought you knew about the 90s, make it this one.
What to expect
A 90-minute DCP screening in BAM Rose Cinemas inside the Peter Jay Sharp Building, with Onwurah taking the stage afterward at the Saturday evening show. Four screenings run daily across the weekend, so the Q&A show is the crowded one and the late show is the calm one. The film is violent and unsentimental about it.
Good to know
- 2/3/4/5/B/D/N/Q/R to Atlantic Ave-Barclays Center, or C to Lafayette Ave, or G to Fulton St.
- The director attends only one screening in the run — the others are the film alone.
- BAM adds a small handling fee per ticket at checkout.
- Running time is 90 minutes with no intermission.
- The Peter Jay Sharp Building has step-free access and assistive listening in the cinemas.
- BAM members save meaningfully on every ticket in the run.
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Common questions
Is this a restoration or an old print?
It is a new restoration screening on DCP, which is why the film looks far sharper than the VHS-era copies most people have seen.
How long is the Q&A?
BAM typically runs post-screening conversations for 20 to 30 minutes after the credits, including audience questions.
Is the film hard to watch?
It is a dystopian drama built around racial violence and a child's death, so yes in places. It is not a horror film, but it is deliberately confrontational.
More on Saturday
