“There is nothing new under the sun, but there are new suns.” Octavia E. Butler
Fifteen years after her death, Octavia E. Butler’s visionary writing is seeing a resurgence of appreciation, including a number of planned film and television adaptations. Butler helped to pioneer the genre of Black speculative fiction to re-imagine the past, present, and future in new ways. We’ll consider Butler’s influence along with other storytellers that continue to expand the landscape of Black speculative fiction and historiography, Afrofuturism, Africanfuturism, and other science fiction and fantasy through film.
From Sun Ra to Cyndi Mayweather to Black Panther, we’ll explore Afrofuturism on film with Ashley Clark, curatorial director at Criterion Collection. And with Kenyan filmmaker Wanuri Kahiu (Rafiki, Pumzi) we’ll journey into the “Afrobubblegum” movement, futurism in African art, and Octavia Butler’s Wild Seed. And we’ll look at Octavia Butler’s special connection to local libraries in a piece with the Los Angeles Public Library’s Vi Ha, librarian and manager of the namesake Octavia Lab, a community space for innovation.
Lost & Found at the Movies is generously supported by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association
