The Plaza Theater
1049 Ponce De Leon Avenue Northeast
Atlanta, Georgia, 30306

FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC. RSVP required.

The event will be followed by a reception at Sweet Auburn BBQ where dinner and drinks will be served. To purchase a ticket to the reception, visit our RSVP page.

liquid blackness is excited to announce its first benefit screening of THE GREAT NORTH (2024) from the visionary British-Nigerian artist and filmmaker Jenn Nkiru. The screening will be followed by a conversation with the filmmaker, returning to Atlanta for a liquid blackness event for the third time since 2019.

Commissioned by Manchester International Festival, THE GREAT NORTH, is a kinetic and vibrant art film on the unattended to histories of Manchester’s Black, Asian, and Irish communities and their connections to the histories of African peoples in the US South, Mali, West Indies, and beyond. Told through the city’s urban architecture, original footage, archival research, and oral histories, THE GREAT NORTH captures the Pan-African throughlines that define the city and its diverse people while exploring how space is used to make and unmake peoples and cultures.

About THE GREAT NORTH, the filmmaker has stated:
“With Manchester as the nucleus, my film THE GREAT NORTH is an exploration of the relationship between memory, time and how it is constructed in relation to space through the perspective of Northern Britain.

As a country, our relationship to the north is one that has always felt fractured and incomplete.
This film is an ode to this — it is an odyssey of exploration with multiple touchpoints churned through my vision — one that is multilayered, remixed, re-ordered, resituated and equally in deep connection with sound.

I’m honored to have made a piece to archive and celebrate aspects never before seen in contemporary film.”

Grounded in the history of Black music, experimental film, and the Black Arts Movement, Nkiru has developed a style of filmmaking that time travels between eras and locations, following a process she describes as “cosmic archaeology.” Her distinctive style can be seen in the films REBIRTH IS NECESSARY, a virtuoso performance of sampling, modeled after Nkiru’s DJ practice, and BLACK TO TECHNO, which excavates untold histories of techno music, as well as the music videos she’s directed. These include Neneh Cherry’s Kong, the Grammy Award-winning Brown Skin Girl for Beyoncé, and most recently, Kamasi Washington and George Clinton’s Get Lit. She also co-directed As Told to G/D Thyself (2019) with Terence Nance, Marc Thomas, Bradford Young, and Kamasi Washington, as Umma Chroma.