Events

In this unusually thoughtful sci-fi hit (based on a Ray Bradbury story), an alien spaceship lands on Earth to make emergency repairs, hoping to leave the planet undiscovered. The aliens understand that their physical form will appear so horrible to humans that our prejudice and unfounded fear will result in violence and death to their people.

Crumbs is set against the background of spectacular post-apocalyptic Ethiopian landscapes, and its main character is a strange-looking scrap collector called Gagano . Alternately gripped by daydreams and constant fears, the diminutive Gagano has had enough of collecting the priceless crumbs of decayed civilization, including the most valuable: merchandise from Michael Jackson and Michael Jordan.

In the 1996 The Last Angel of History – part documentary, part science-fiction – director John Akomfrah examines the origins of the now-familiar genre of Afrofuturism, with George Clinton, Nichelle Nichols, Ishmael Reed, DJ Spooky and others as our guides. In director Frances Bodomo’s 2014 Afrofuturist short Afronauts, a group of Zambian exiles races to beat American astronauts to the moon in 1969. 

A general (Toshiro Mifune) guards his defeated clan’s princess in a journey across enemy territory, accompanied by two bickering, bumbling peasants. If the plot of director Akira Kurosawa’s rollicking and exhilarating 16th-century Japanese swordplay adventure seems familiar, it may be because it’s not only one of George Lucas’s favorite films, but one he cites as a primary influence on Star Wars. In Japanese with English subtitles.