A collection of 14 short films that all revolve around Sun Ra and his time in Chicago

Former Arts Incubator resident Cauleen Smith's acclaimed feature film debut follows a young woman from Oakland, CA who sets out on a mission to photograph the young black men around her, whom she considers an endangered species. Her obsessive Polaroid snapshots lead her to encounter many eccentric neighborhood characters who force her to reevaluate her own life and art. A powerful meditation on the beauty and vulnerability of everyday life.

Three monologues adapted from the groundbreaking book, Black Women in White America, edited by Gerda Lerner.

This film traces the artist’s pilgrimage to three sites: Alice Coltrane’s Turiyasangitananda Vedantic Center in Agoura, California; Watts Towers in Los Angeles; and the Black spiritual activist Rebecca Cox Jackson’s Watervliet Shaker community in upstate New York. In vivid evocations of each place’s creative atmosphere, Smith’s camera slowly explores the ashram’s interior and Coltrane’s musical instruments, while her use of 16mm film—with its soft grain and subtle color palette—infuses Watts Towers and the Shaker garden’s flowers with an emotional intimacy.
Jackson’s advocacy of racial and gender equality, her fight against the patriarchy of organized religion, and her awareness of the African roots of her faith resonate with Coltrane’s own hybrid, transnational spiritual and musical language. Both women’s challenges to accepted authority are, like the enduring independent spirit of Watts Towers, grounded in a sense of place, community, and generosity that are also hallmarks of Smith’s own transformative work.