[upbeat music] - Hello there and welcome to Cinema of the Afrofuture.

My name is Celia C. Peters and I am the curator of Blackness Revisualized, the inaugural Afrofuturist film festival from all-arts at Oregon WNET and I'm also your host.

Hostess.

Hostess with the mostest today.

And I'm super excited about today's talk.

We have some fantastic guests from actually around the world.

So the two films that we are spotlighting this month are, The Journey, which is a Brazilian Afrofuturist film that was directed by Jonathan Ferr, who is with us today.

and also Star Thieves, which is sort of intergalactic short film, which Stars Dennis Hill who's also with us today.

In addition, we have Vaneza Oliveira, who is one of the stars of the Netflix Brazilian Scifi hit series 3%.

I think you will remember her as Joana.

And we also have Selam Bekele who is an interdisciplinary artist and curatorial fellow at the Wadis Institute at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco.

So thank you all for being here today.

It's fantastic to see you.

How's everybody doing?

Good?

- Good.

- Fantastic.

- Very good.

- Hello.

Hello.

Hello.

Hello.

- Hi.

- I'm very happy.

- So I'm gonna start with a question for Jonathan actually.

Jonathan, you are a musician.

You are an Afrofuturist pianist.

What inspired you to make the leap from music to directing film?

Or I should say what inspired you to bring directing film into your repertoire?

- Well, I'm speaking in Portuguese.

[speaking in foreign language] - Oh, so he said that cinema was always his passion.

And when he was doing, like studying music, he was actually trying also to study cinema at the same time if things didn't came right.

But actually like both things came right.

So this was for the first opportunity that he had to be the director of a movie and to work with the Afrofuturism as an inspiration for his creation.

- Fantastic, thank you.

And for the audience, I'd like to let everyone know that for Jonathan and Vaneza, we have Sergio who will be translating their answers in Portuguese to English for us.

So thank you Sergio for being here as well, we really appreciate you.

[speaking portuguese] - I want to say something.

My inspiration is Sun Ra, 'cause he's a pure [indistinct] and major beautiful music too.

- Sun Ra?

- Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

- Yes, yes, yes.

That's really great that you said that.

Because Sun Ra is, you know, he's really known as the catalyst for Afrofuturism, certainly in the United States.

He's the one that really spawned the whole movement for us consciously, that got people thinking consciously about it.

- Yeah.

- So I'm gonna switch over to Dennis and talk a little bit about Star Thieves, which is our other film that's featured this month in the festival.

Your character in Star Thieves is a priest, which is very different than your real life.

So I'm curious as to... And when I say that, I mean, as a partner and a father.

As a husband, and father, is very different than being- - Yeah.

Yeah.

I get it.

[laughing] - I don't want people to get the wrong idea.

[Dennis laughs] So how did you prepare for that role?

- Well, you know, originally my producing partners and I, we created the idea together.

So I was with the project from its inception.

So I knew a lot about the character and I knew what we wanted to do.

But my approach to my work has always been to convey just human emotion, tell the human story.

So no matter if I was [indistinct] a priest or a cop, or what have you, it would always be about reflecting who we are as human beings and kind of latching on to those universal emotions.

And then kind of pepper it right in with, you know, what I felt a priest would do in these situations.

But ironically enough, trying to convey these human emotions we're dealing with E.Ts.

So it was a lot of fun to play with.

And yeah, I just hope that folks enjoyed the role and the story.

- I mean, I'm sure that they do because you did a fantastic job and I will say that one thing that came across in your performance is very, kind of, thoughtful aspect, which is something that I associate with clergy.

Just being very thoughtful and like insightful.

And I think you carried it through to, I'm gonna try to say this without giving any spoilers, the different aspects of your character.

I'll put it that way.

- Yes.

- So now I'm gonna ask a question of Vaneza.

So the series that you starred in 3%, I'm not sure if you know, but it's very, very popular and very well known in Afrofuturist circles in the United States.

And I definitely watched it and I definitely was a huge fan of Joana.

I was so glad to see her there, but also her character is so powerful and fearless.

And so the strength comes through, but very human as well.

And for those who don't know, the 3% is set in a dystopian future where a person's opportunities for having a good life are directly based on their class.

And it's very scary.

But that feels like it's around the corner in many ways.

Was it important to you that a black woman be a key figure in this story of a future society?

- Celia, thank you.

Yes.

A lot.

Its important.

Because we past don't tell history about black woman.

So it's most important Afrofuturism, is the moment for, we black woman, be lead of history and... [speaking portuguese] I'm sorry.

[speaking portuguese] Hello Sergio.

- Hello.

Great.

So beyond why you said, Celia, what she mentioned as well is that in the beginning of the series her character was a tough woman, a strong woman.

But as the seasons were passing by, the sensibility and all the things involved that was also came in to her character.

So it is important for us, not only to show the strength, but also to show and to occupy all those spaces [indistinct] beyond what people use to talk about us.

- Right.

Exactly.

I think that that's an excellent point.

Because when we started to see Joana's humanity and where she came from and how she got to be that tough woman, it was important because that part of the story is just as important as what we saw of this.

Yeah, that.

And I think that's one of the beauties of Afrofuturism, is that it opens up all of the possibilities, not just the stereotype or the trope that we normally see.

So Selam, we're gonna switch over to you.

And, so first I want to ask you about... Well, I should let the audience know that Selam currently has a piece, a film piece, an experimental.

an art film essentially called Approaching.

Which is currently a part of the mothership exhibit, which is an exhibit of Afrofuturist artists, a huge exhibit at the Oakland museum of California.

It's really fantastic.

I'm based in Oakland.

And I've been to the exhibit a couple of times now, and I'm sure I will be back.

And, you know, I really enjoyed your piece.

And I wanted to ask you, can you tell us a little bit about the piece from your perspective as the creator of it and how did you come to connect with the museum?

- Thank you.

Thank you.

I connected with the museum a few years ago.

They reached out to me kind of in the initial stages of conceptualizing the exhibition and invited me for like a two-day convening with other artists and curators and academics.

And we kind of just started thinking about the Afrofuturist philosophy and what it means, what it doesn't mean, the problematics around it and tried to come up with a holistic exhibition that had a lot of various viewpoints.

And from that conversation, actually, I thought it was really interesting, particularly, like the word itself, Afrofuturism kind of was attractive to some and kind of like pushed away by others.

But the concept itself was very much celebrated.

So I started to just kind of think about this like human impulse of naming and titles and this like desire to wanna understand something with words.

I guess just like how that is a human impulse, but how that can also be problematized or commodified sometimes.

So that was kind of like one of the early seeds of approaching and it's approaching a blank.

So there's a blank space that is also like a very much a part of the title.

So a lot of it is about empty space and about kind of this like questioning or this desire for something; liberation, love, freedom, and what happens along the way.

- Mm-hmm [affirmative] - Started to make me think about a lot of other things in the process.

- Nice.

It's a stunning work.

And if anyone is in the bay area, I definitely highly suggest that you go see the mothership exhibit.

It's a really important exhibit because it does encompass many different perspectives on Afrofuturism, which I think is one of the beauties of Afrofuturism.

Is that we do have, you know, a kaleidoscope of viewpoints.

So I'm gonna go back, with that idea in mind, I'm gonna go back to Jonathan and talk about The Journey a little bit.

So the film connects two lovers across time and across the ages.

But one thing that is consistent between their different existences is their blackness.

That's a constant thread through their story.

Can you tell us about those choices that you made as a storyteller?

And for you as a storyteller, what are the themes of The Journey?

[speaking portuguese] - Oh, we've got a little frozen space.

- Frozen trouble.

- I think you're okay now.

Sergio did you get that.

- I got a little.

So I think like, it will sound not... you will not understand by just the pieces that I understand.

[speaking portuguese] Jonah, can you repeat please.

[speaking portuguese] Okay.

[speaking portuguese] - Cool.

So the movie is also about time.

It's mostly about time.

So Jonathan wants to create a mythological idea of Africa, and it relates back to when black people comes into Brazil in the 1500s.

And right after he do like a parallel a thousand years later, and the connection between both.

And let me ask him to repeat the final, because it was a little bit confusing.

Jonathan... [speaking portuguese] You are on mute, Jonathan.

[speaking portuguese] - Okay.

[Jonathan laughs] [speaking portuguese] - Cool.

So the movie also like connects with his album that tells a little bit the story about timing, time being also a cure for people.

So the cure happens when, like, when you go back and you find your own society doesn't needs to be only on the back, but you can also find it on the future.

So you can get back going into the future.

So that's the paradox, cost up that he want to bring.

And also by the end of the movie, when the characters dance together, it's all about that.

So like, it's kinda like this break on time where he can like find the cure and find the connections with each other and with ourselves, as well.

- Nice.

It's beautiful.

I mean, that definitely comes through.

And for the audience, I should also say that the film, The Journey features Jonathan's music as well.

Obviously he did the score.

And so the music is a big part of the storytelling, but it's a visually stunning piece.

So Dennis, we talk about crossing time, but in Star Thieves, we're talking about kind of crossing galaxies and dimensions.

And it's a story that has, the lead characters are people of color and you have different races of people.

And I wonder if you could talk about, you know, how important that is.

And if you think that people notice that off the bat, or do they get more caught up in the story first?

- Yeah.

Thank you for that question.

So I guess initially, I think folks do recognize it but it's more of a subconscious thing.

Because everyone that I've spoken to of the project after seeing it, you know, no matter what race they were, they just love the story.

They love the story of these nomadic aliens, just deciding the fate of human beings, whether they can progress to where they are, the E.Ts.

But originally when we were creating the idea, my team and I focused on that.

We wanted to give others opportunities, the ones who are usually marginalized in the industry.

And, you know, I'm in a mixed relationship.

I'm married to a Japanese woman, my adopted daughter is Mexican and my biological daughter is biracial.

And I knew that I wanted to show that in my work, I mean, it's just a reflection of my life.

So we have about five different backgrounds in this Scifi lead.

I think it's African-American, Latino, Korean, Filipino, and south Asian and the American leads for Star Thieves.

And I think that comes through, but the story is, I think what grabs folks and I'm proud of that.

Oh, yeah.

- Yeah, you should be.

I mean, I think the point you made about it being subconscious, I think it's true.

Because when I watched it the first couple of times, it registered, but I wasn't really...

I was more into what was happening because then again, the visuals are so epic and it's such a... And the performances are very strong as well.

So you sort of get caught up in the characters and what they're experiencing.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

They- Sorry.

- Go ahead.

- Yeah, I was just saying that, when we first started thinking about the idea, this was before black Panther came out.

So we didn't want there to be any whitewashing of the characters because we see a lot of that.

And my team and I wanted to create a space where, you know, we kind of saw ourselves in the future or saw ourselves as leaders in Scifi fantasy and acting.

So we just decided to do it ourselves because of the experience that we have.

- Yeah.

Very, very important.

I mean, I think that's something that everyone on this panel, everybody who's here with us, we have in common, is recognizing the importance of that.

Vaneza, I'd like to talk a little bit about The 3%... Oh, not The.

About 3% in general.

So 3% ran longer than many Netflix series.

There have been many that were popular that were gone right away.

Why do you think that 3% had the impact that it did or does?

- I don't know.

So many things.

In Portuguese.

[speaking portuguese] [Vaneza and Sergio laughing] - Don't worry.

So I think what she said is that the first thing is in regards the lack off black people in the protagonism spaces, in the audiovisual in Brazil.

So the representativeness that Joana brought as a strong woman, but also as a sensitive woman, a person with values and all the things that she brought, it was something that was lacking in Brazil audiovisual.

So that's why she believes that one of the things was around that.

So it was super important from a Brazilian perspective to have not only a character that is one of the protagonism but also besides white men being like the main character, but by the end of the character in spiraling year, by the end of this series, it's Joana that drives the end of, the conclusion of [indistinct].

And so this was super important.

And globally speaking, she believes that it is more in regards to the Brazilian lens around that.

So not only due to like the black women in the protagonists as well, but also the Brazilianess of the creativity that we have and the importance that we had.

And she believes that these also grab the attention a little of the main audience from a global perspective.

- Yeah, I think so.

Because I think about when I first started watching, it was really interesting.

It was fascinating to see diversity represented with Joana and also the other characters in a context that was not American.

It was in a different country, in a different society, a different culture, which we don't see in the United States.

We don't see that all the time.

So that was really fascinating.

Yes.

Thank you.

So I'm gonna go back to Selam and I'm gonna ask you about Afrofuturism and how did you connect with Afrofuturism first Selam?

- Well, I made a short film right out of college called Prince of Nowhere, along with a couple other films and some interactive pieces.

I kind of range from sculpture to film and I also DJ.

And I felt like there was this fluidity that I was up to.

I submitted the films to the Afrofuturist affair in Philadelphia.

Shout out to Rasheedah Phillips, and Moor Mother that were organizing that.

And that was my first kind of like time having my work under the umbrella of Afrofuturism.

- But I mean, you as an artist, as a thinker, like, what was your first contact?

I mean, for some people, it was sun Ra, for other people it was, you know, I don't know, other things.

But for you, what was your first contact with the concept?

- I think that show.

That show, that group exhibition mainly like, it was kind of like this, where there was a QnA with our work as well.

And there were people that were coming under the umbrella of Afrofuturism to ask questions kind of within that perspective.

And I remember how inspired I was by some of the questions, really looking into the form of my work and asking questions around...

I remember one guy asked the question around duality because I kept shifting images and putting images together back to back.

And we had like a really philosophical conversation that was also centered around black liberation and around experimentalism and around femininity and sensitivity.

And I just remember really loving that space, as a space for conversation, very similar to this one where I'm kind of like inspired by everybody's work and I want to get more into everybody's work.

So yeah, mostly that.

I've read Octavia Butler's books, I'm into Sun Ra's lectures.

But I also think Afrofuturism is just kind of like this way of looking at something and it could be applied to anything, including hip hop, jazz nature, astronomy.

[laughs] - Absolutely.

I mean, I think as time goes on, Afrofuturism has transcended, you know, being a sub-genre of Scifi.

It's a movement.

I think it's a worldview.

And it's definitely something that I think more and more people are bringing into the way they think about their lives.

Not just like some idea out there.

It's like, how can I make this a part of how I'm living.

Because if we're looking at black people having, you know, exercising their urgency to create their own futures, then that's really what the key is.

I mean, to me, it seems like that's the point of it.

You know, so that we can actually create the futures that are best for ourselves.

Dennis, so I'm gonna ask you, what does Afrofuturism mean to you?

But then I also wanna ask about Star Thieves, there is an interplay between sort of religion, spirituality, and sort of the science, you know, Scifi.

And I wanna ask you, do you believe that science and spirituality overlap, or do you think they're totally separate?

- Remind me the first question again.

- What does Afrofuturism mean to you?

- Okay.

Yeah.

I think my producing partner, Leslie foster and director of Star Thieves put it best.

He mentioned that Afrofuturism kind of reminds us that we have a future as African-Americans, as you know, across the world.

People of color, they do have a place in the future.

Whether it be, you know, viewed as, you know, something negative, a positive that were there, making those decisions, helping to unfold our own reality.

The fun part of that is that, you know, it's your playground.

You know, you can do whatever you want with the material.

And for us, it was exciting because we just kind of brainstormed and threw ideas together, you know, and figured out what works.

And it kind of landed us with Star Thieves.

But Afrofuturism kind of, and especially with black Panther coming out and just all of the projects that we're seeing today, everyone on here, it just is encouraging.

It's encouraging that you can tell your story and be the leads in your story.

So that's what it means to me at least.

And I thought that Leslie put that beautifully.

And if...

The second question again was?

- Do you believe that science and spirituality overlap, or are they two totally separate things for you?

- I definitely do.

I'm not a Scientologist or anything.

I don't, you know...

I think science kind of helps us be more aware of our spirituality.

The way that I grew up, I grew up as an Adventist, a Christian.

I had a lot of questions about my faith and had some of those questions answered in a way that was a bit lacking to me through science.

But then, you know, we'll fall back a little bit because science, you know, obviously doesn't have the answers to everything, not yet.

So I feel that they do have the potential for a beautiful marriage.

Because there's just the mystery of everything, all of this I mean, we're floating on a rock in the middle of nowhere right now.

It's just, not to really get too deep into that stuff, but it's just like, you know...

I think like myself, all of us have questions.

And we want answers and sometimes we will push those answers that we've been raised on and another times we want to go in a different direction.

And I feel like there's a place where both of those things can exist at the same time where you can look for facts, but then also realize there are some things that we just can't explain as human beings, and I don't think we ever will be able to.

- Right on.

I think, you know, one of the things about Afrofuturism is this richness we have.

I mean, I think in the world of science, you know, as it advances further and further, some of the most advanced science is also the most abstract and the most, for lack of a better term, weird, I think you know, Einstein called it weird.

We look at physics and theoretical physics.

But then if we bring it back to sort of, you know, Afrofuturism and we look at African cultures and antiquity that we're looking at some of the same questions and that, you know, that there's knowledge that kind of goes around that seems full circle, you know, in terms of understanding, why are we here?

How did we get here?

You know, what is this rock that we're floating on?

It's fascinating.

And I think as time goes on, we'll hopefully get more and more answers.

But it just seems like they're sort of converging, you know, the spiritual and the scientific, which is...

I don't know if anybody's saw that coming, you know.

Jonathan, I wanna ask you, sort of in the same direction of science, but talking about technology.

So music, I think music itself is timeless.

But it changes in a way.

Technology changes the instruments that humans use.

And it also changes the way that we listen to music.

So as a musician, how do you see music evolving in the future?

[speaking portuguese] - Sorry.

[speaking portuguese] [ Jonathan laughs] - All right to speak a lot slowly in portuguese.

[ Jonathan laughs] [speaking portuguese] - Okay.

So music like, and technology for him is something that works together like, and evolution of technology.

Really like integrating the evolution of music.

If you take a look like on the age of the instruments, of saxophone, what something like that exists, like for more years.

The same as the guitar.

So as soon as the technology comes in and the instruments are evolving, the music also evolves.

And he will complete.

[speaking portuguese] - Nice.

Nice.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

And I have to complete.

[speaking portuguese] Jazz is the future.

Jazz is the music of the future.

And [indistinct] portuguese together.

[speaking portuguese] - Inspiring.

[laughs] I hear before you all.

So as a jazz musician, Jonathan like believes that like technology, again, like works all together with music.

But its important to mention, like as with the black diaspora, from Africa, Brazil, like when we talk about technology is not only the technology that we are having nowadays, is the technology from our ancestors.

And like, especially like with the black, the religions from black, from Africa, et cetera, all the instruments that came in it's important to bring like, and this like is the technology of the future of our ancestors.

So it's important to bring that.

And at the same time with the new technology.

So like, the synthesizers and all the new instruments and how do you merge them together?

And you create a new future.

So it's good to see like this, the future of the past and how this will create the future of beyond.

- Yes, absolutely.

Because those faith, those spiritual faiths from the continent of Africa are definitely cornerstones of Afrofuturism.

And so yes, the whole idea of those sort of ancient belief systems and that ancient knowledge along with the technology of the future is like, it's mind mind blowing, really.

So I'm gonna switch to Vaneza.

And I'd like to ask you, first of all, how... Not how?

Why did you become an actor?

And is there more science fiction in your future?

- Okay.

So a long story.

when I had 11 years old, my mom show me theater.

In that moment, "Oh my God, I need.

I need.

I'm actress."

But life its changed.

Many things happened to me.

I become mother.

I'm single mother, when I had 17 years.

And it's very difficult, be artist in Brazil.

Mother is big, big, difficult, so, its big difficult.

So for 10 years, I'm forgot this idea.

I'm forgot what I was.

So when I did Joana... No.

Oh my God.

This is very, very difficult.

Okay.

Continue in portuguese is better.

- Okay.

- Okay.

[speaking portuguese] - Okay.

So when she turned 24, she decided to do the things that she loved the most in her life.

And one of the things, and maybe the most want is to be a storyteller.

So she was always in passion and being like a storyteller, so she decided to invested on that.

And nowadays what she does is to tell stories through her art, through her body, through her mind, through her soul, and she will continue.

[speaking portuguese] - Is there more science fiction in her future?

- Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Totally.

I wanna.

It's very...

It's very soon...

In Portuguese.

[speaking portuguese] - Lets work together.

- Together.

[Vaneza laughs] - Yes.

I can't wait.

Okay Sergio.

Tell us.

[laughing] - No pressure.

So Afrofuturist she started to like really learning about Afrofuturism and to really experience Afrofuturism like nearly, like it was not that time ago.

But when she like understands the possibility on creating new futures and new futures for her.

So when she was a storyteller, and the stories that she told when she was a little kid, the stars that she most liked, it was her stories.

So when she came in and understood the Afrofuturism, not only as an actress, but also as a director on creating new stories, she was like, yeah, that's the opportunity that I had and go back to my inner child to tell my stories and not only acting, but also directing, related to Afrofuturism.

So the great connection about how Afrofuturism really unlocked some super important for her as a kid and now she had the opportunity to work with that and to gift us with her art.

- Oh, that's beautiful.

That's beautiful.

That's so empowering because that's what it's all about.

Really is, you know, telling our own stories and determining for ourselves.

That's amazing.

I'm gonna ask Selam one more question, and then I have a sort of speed round question for everybody.

But before that, I want to ask, Selam, so The Journey as a Brazilian film with universal themes and Star Thieves is a film that brings together this multiracial and multicultural cast to tell a sort of bigger existential story.

So, and in the festival in general, in Blackness Revisualized this film festival.

We have 10 films from five different countries, all of them Afrofuturist films.

And I think that reflects the global nature of this cultural movement.

How do you think that, that global identity is... How do you think that, that is reshaping black identity?

- The global ness of it?

- Yes.

- I mean, the solidarity I think, the shared experiences.

I can just, going off of Vaneza's story, it made me think of the story, I guess that goes back to your earlier question but also this question, around how I got into Afrofuturism.

And yeah, I think I was always just interested in like experimental media and just kind of never really conforming to what was already established, recognizing that there's likely institutionalized sexism or racism or whatever that's probably going to be embedded in that.

So I kind of always liked to exist within the margins.

And I was studying abroad in England in college, and I was going to all these museums for school and I kept seeing this like photo of a young Ethiopian boy, I'm originally from Ethiopia.

And there was nothing really written about him other than like his name and generally like where he's from.

But I knew a little bit more about his story than what was elaborated in these museums.

And I knew that he was kidnapped, kidnapped by the British.

And then there's this like fascination of him where his photo is in the children's museum.

He was buried a little outside of Windsor castle.

A little outside, so not in, but a little outside.

- [Celia] Right.

- And of course, none of this is really being taught in my school as well.

So we're kind of being asked to like exist and participate in these systems but not really, I'm having questions that I'm not really, getting answers for.

And I think that was the seed that planted the story Prince of Nowhere that I ended up making when I got back to California.

And I wanted basically to use cinema or use the camera as a way to kind of interview him, particularly in the last few weeks before his death.

And just ask him questions around how he's feeling at that time.

So this prince existed in the 19th century, I would say like the late 1800s.

So using the camera and hiring an actor friend to kind of improvise a conversation with me around feelings of isolation and feelings of blackness, feelings of particularly like this fascination that I think the British empire had around this boy particularly.

And then without really like offering him space to exist and to live.

- To be fully human.

- To be fully human.

And then using, you know, my skills as a filmmaker, using just like my interests, my curiosity, my care to tell a new story that kind of connects these two periods in time.

And then also like processing my own grief or my own feelings of isolation in this like institution that I was in that wasn't really acknowledging like British colonialism.

So with that, making a short film, but you know, traveling from the United States to England, thinking about this like a long history of colonialism, connecting it with Ethiopia.

And kind of like continuing to travel spatially and then also temporally in that sense, I started to develop community in that process.

Like I said, sharing the film in Philadelphia and a lot of different places.

And I guess that just kind of goes into this process of like black identity being written by black people and not just accepting what others say we are.

And then doing that in community and in conversation, especially through creative mediums, like selling my music.

- Yeah.

Right on.

And I think now we have the gift of technology that allows us to connect with each other instantly.

So now we can connect with people, as we see here, all over the globe to have this conversation about black futures.

Which I think is so exciting and tells us at just the very minimum what the possibilities are.

So we have about 13 minutes left.

So I'm gonna do a speed round, which means I'm gonna ask everyone the same question and you have about a minute to answer.

So please, and then we have a couple of questions from the audience.

So that's why it's a speed round.

'Cause I wanna save time for those questions from the chat.

So the question that I want everyone to answer is, what would you do if there were a mass arrival of extraterrestrials on earth.

And I'm gonna start with Jonathan.

And so I'm not using the word invasion, because invasion is inherently negative.

Right?

And scary.

It may not be an invasion, but whether it's that, or it's the friendly arrive, but we're just gonna say a mass arrival that everyone knows about, around the whole world at the same time, what would you do?

[speaking portuguese] [Jonathan laughs] - [Celia] One minute.

One minute.

- One minute.

Alright.

Alright.

Alright.

Wow.

I never thinking about this, but... [speaking portuguese] - Cool.

So I'll try to create a reason.

He would be in love with that, actually like he had this script already written that is like not invasion, but it's like, when we realize that was a lot of aliens already leaving in here, and we just realized that.

And this takes back from all the Sun Ra's stories, are in the old Egypt.

When like it relates that to all the connections and the arrivals from like, from Venus coming into the earth.

So, yeah.

He will be super happy as I do as well.

Please come.

- Right on.

Okay, Dennis, what would you do?

Mass arrival of extra terrestrials on earth.

- I guess the first thing I would be hoping is that they will be peaceful.

[laughing] 'Cause with our history with strange people showing up to us has not ended up well in the past.

But, you know, I would really look forward to us learning from each other.

I'm sure there's some technology or knowledge or spirituality that we don't know about that could be helpful for our growth.

And hopefully we could share something with them to.

- Nice.

I like that optimism.

I like that.

Thank you.

Vaneza.

- I'm dancing.

[laughs] Because I can't talk them because I don't know what the language they talk.

So dancing.

My body speak.

[laughs] - Universal language, right?

- Yes, yes, yes.

[laughs] - Nice.

Nice.

I love it.

Selam.

- I would check the vibes and say a prayer.

[all laughing] - Nice.

That's a good idea too.

You know, in the past we've had a couple of people said on one of our talks, they said they would get a bottle of tequila or mezcal and go to the mountains, and set up on top of a mountain and just see how it goes.

I think it's hilarious.

But I love the hope and the optimism in this group.

That's wonderful, because I think, you know, it could go either way.

But as we see more and more of how huge our universe is, I personally, the chances of us being the only intelligent life in the whole thing, you know, there's got to be more.

So I got a five minute warning.

So I'm gonna ask really quickly.

And we do have to stop at five, but one of the questions from the audience was, what do you think is next for Afrofuturism?

Any new trends?

So maybe if everybody could say one word.

Like what do you think is next for Afrofuturism?

Just one word.

Jonathan.

- One word.

I cannot- [crosstalk] oh man.

Is life.

Life.

- Beautiful, Dennis.

- You know, that's an interesting question.

You know, one of the things that we see- - One word.

- ... in Afrofuturism is the mask.

Mask.

- Mask?

- Yeah.

- All right.

All right.

That's mysterious.

Vaneza.

One word.

- Freedom.

- Awesome.

- Selam.

One word.

- Peace.

- Peace.

Yeah.

Beautiful.

Oh my God.

You guys have made my whole week, my whole weekend.

My whole month.

My God.

So I wanna say again, thank you so much to all of you for being here.

On behalf of myself, of all-arts.org WNET in New York and also our audience, We really appreciate you taking the time to be with us and to talk about Afrofuturism, to talk about the wonderful, wonderful work that you're doing.

It's very exciting.

All of you.

And so I wanna remind the audience to please go to all-arts.org.

You can stream all of the films that are in Blackness Revisualized at all-arts.org.

And also check there's a couple of films, I think that are still going to be broadcast on WNET in New York.

And that's for the local regional area in New York city, but everyone can stream them on all-arts.org.

So thank you very much.

I'm wishing everyone well, and please do keep in touch with us.

We love what you're doing and keep doing it.

Keep doing it.

Take care everyone and have a wonderful week and a fantastic weekend.