SAUL WILLIAMS
After living abroad for four years, Saul Williams returned to America and found his head twirling with thoughts on everything from race, class, and gender, to finance, freedom, and guns, to cooking shows, dog shows, superheroes, not-so-super politicians, and everything else that makes up our country.
US(a.) is a collection of poems that embodies the spirit of a culture that questions sentiments and realities, embracing a cross-section of pop culture, hip-hop, and the greater world politic of the moment. It’s a punk rock oracular testament that speaks to the rebellious teen as well as the sheltered suburban dreamer. Saul Williams explores what social media may only hint at—the fact that times and realities have changed, yet there is a connect and a disconnect. We are wirelessly connected to a past and path to which we are, possibly, chained.
Saul Williams aims to stop and frisk the moment, make it empty its pockets, and chronicle what’s inside. Here is an extraordinary book that will find its place in the hands and minds of a new generation.
BLACK SPIRITUALS
Black Spirituals, of Oakland CA, are a locally venerated duo of creative sound-makers who articulate meaning at the ecstatic intersection of tone-generating electronics & the heart-thumping, acoustic percussion technologies. Predicated upon their libidinal drive to produce the narrative of our musical expositions, Black Spirituals mediates a threefold vernacular presence, the instigation of unfurling cultural dynamics, and the relationship mediation collective logics
Opening Film @ 7pm
NECKTIE YOUTH
Jabz and September are two twenty-something suburbanites drifting through a day of drugs, sex, and philosophizing in their privileged Johannesburg neighborhood. Gorgeously shot using rich black-and-white photography, the story is anchored by the live-streamed suicide of their friend Emily. Jabz and September are ill equipped to handle the tragedy that interrupts the hollowness of their daily lives.
A first-time director, 23-year-old Sibs Shongwe-La Mer depicts a raw, unique, and captivating post-apartheid Johannesburg. Facing adulthood and forced to confront a changing society today’s disaffected youth ultimately confronts a hard truth that can’t be ignored.
*first U.S. screening following TriBeCa Film Festival premier
In East African nations, matatu (Swahili) are privately owned minibuses or easily accessible share taxis. Decorated with popular icons and sounds, they offer a means of travel and often, access to another world and time. We invite you to come aboard the Matatu Festival of Stories, four days of music, film, and performance September 23-26.
#MATATU15 The Spectacular Walk of Ordinary People
Presented by Blavity & KQED
Cost: Presale $22