The hero can’t dead till the last reel!

It would be misleading to simmer this movie down to: provincial yute turns rude boy turns hero after his dreams of becoming a music star in the city have been obstructed by self-righteous priests, cynical producers and scheming ganja dealers. By means of independent cinema, the Caribbean Blaxploitation moves close to the centre of post-independent social realities. The gritty, rough’n’ ready movie is, all the same, “a celebration of Jamaican music and style” (R. Ebert) and a declaration of love for the islands language – spoken, sang, danced.

Maria Thereza Alves, our movie host this week, remembers: “The movie was shown at midnight in New York in the 70s. This film, in a New York of-the-times with a lack of visibility of cultural production by non-white people, gave us a possibility to see our own histories.”

Maria Thereza Alves (born 1961) is a Brazilian artist living and working in Berlin. Her artistic practice often incorporates the political knowledge to be gained from organic materials. She has worked for the International Indian Treaty Council in New York City and founded the Brazilian Information Center, working in defense of human rights of indigenous people. In 1981 she co-founded the Partido Verde (Green Party) in São Paulo, Brazil. Amongst others, her work has been exhibited at the Liverpool Biennial; NGBK, Berlin; Villa Medici, Rome; Steirischer Herbst, Graz; New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York as well as in documenta 13 (2012), the Bienal de São Paulo (2016 and 2010), the Biennale de Lyon (2009), Manifesta 7 (2008), the Guangzhou Triennial (2008), and the Biennale di Venezia (2001).