Space Is the Place with bonus Sun Ra Memorial Footage
John Coney
*Please note: This will be in both theaters. Since each screening has an introduction/speaker, the second screening will have a staggered start time of 7:15pm. * As part of the citywide Sun Ra Celebration, Sidewalk will be screening Sun Ra's 1974 cult classic, Space is the Place. Before the film, the Southern Music Research Center will share exclusive archival footage from Sun Ra's memorial service, held in Birmingham in 1993. Film Synopsis: Avant-jazz mystic Sun Ra brought his pioneering Afrofuturist vision to the screen with this film version of his concept album. It’s a wild, kaleidoscopic whirl of science fiction, sharp social commentary, goofy pseudo-blaxploitation stylistics, and thrilling concert performance, in which the pharaonic Ra and his Arkestra lead an intergalactic movement to resettle the Black race on their utopian space colony.