Doors at 7:30PM ~ Film screening at 8PM
It's movie night at Ashkenaz! We are proud to join forces with Sublime Frequencies, the tireless ethnographic music label, to present two films showcasing African music and dancing rituals. Filmmaker Hisham Mayet (who also co-owns the record label) will be with us in person to present the movies, answer questions about the films, and discuss his experiences searching for ecstatic music in Niger, Mali, and other African countries. Don't miss this chance to pass the popcorn with us!
Exhilarating, hallucinatory, harrowing, ecstatic and surreal, Hisham Mayet’s films and audio collections reveal a region’s rituals, rhythm and landscape, with an aesthetic of extra-geography and soulful experience. His many documentaries have been redefining the nature of ethnographic film, and continue to provoke and amaze in equal measure. The first film Hisham will present is "Vodoun Gods on the Slave Coast" (50 minutes) which was shot in Benin, the cradle and birthplace of Voodoo. Benin was formerly known as the Slave Coast, and most of the slave industry was exported from its shores. Voodoo worship is integral to the everyday lives of the people of Benin and this film, shot in 2010, documents a variety of Voodoo ceremonies: the cult of Sakpata (god of pestilence and healing), Egoun dramas shrouded in magisterial costumes and the secret police of the Zangbeto nightwatchmen, among other highlights.
After a brief intermission and Q&A we will present the evening's other film: "The Divine River - Ceremonial Pageantry In The Sahel" (50 minutes). Condensed from 40 hours of footage shot between 2007 and 2012, The Divine River shows life along the Niger River—which the Tuareg call Egerew n-Igerewen, or "River of Rivers"— as it winds through Mali and the Republic of Niger. Traversing 300 miles of this transitional zone between the Sahara and the Savanna, The Divine River is not a linear record of a journey so much as a phantasmagoria of visual associations that create their own emotional topography and chronology, always accompanied by music that blurs the lines between sacred and secular, past and present. Highlights include intimate views of ecstatic dance in the painted houses of the island-dwelling Wogo; the seductive courtship rites and trance vocals of young Wodaabe men; a mesmeric Tuareg and Zarma duet for guitar and molo; Hausa griots enchanting with comsaa strings; Zarma spirit possession ceremonies; and heart-stopping footage of the Dogon mask ritual atop the Bandiagara Escarpment in the village of Endele. Rejecting the distractions of an imaginary understanding in favor of simple attention and humility, the Divine River provides a portal to the deeper knowledge counseled in a centuries-old Sufi prayer: "O Lord, increase my bewilderment."