Chicago Premiere: The Nine Muses by John Akomfrah at ICE Theaters

Wed, Nov 30, 7pm,
ICE Theaters Lawndale
3330 W Roosevelt
Admission: $5.00

Thurs, Dec 1, 7pm,
ICE Theaters Chatham
210 W 87th St
Admission: $5.00

THE NINE MUSES (UK 2011, 94 min HDCinema)
Directed by John Akomfrah

"Fascinating! Cerebral and sensual, British filmmaker John Akomfrah's The Nine Muses considers the history of the African diaspora to postwar Europe through a highly unusual prism of structuralist cinema, archival footage, spoken-word recordings and the nine muses birthed by the union of Zeus and Mnemone, the Greek goddess of memory [with] many heady references" --Robert Koehler, Variety

Twenty-five years after the end of the Trojan War, Odysseus still has not returned home. So his son, Telemachus, sets off on a journey in search of his lost father. So begins Homer's revered epic poem, The Odyssey, the primary narrative reference point for The Nine Muses, John Akomfrah's remarkable meditation about chance, fate and redemption.
Structured as an allegorical fable set between 1949 and 1970, The Nine Muses is comprised of nine overlapping musical chapters that mix archival material with original scenes. Together, they form a stylized, idiosyncratic retelling of the history of mass migration to post-war Britain through the suggestive lens of the Homeric epic.
In addition to its resonance with Homer's epic, The Nine Muses was devised and scripted from the writings of a wide range of authors including Dante Alighieri, Samuel Beckett, Emily Dickinson, James Joyce, John Milton, Friedrich Nietzsche, William Shakespeare, Sophocles, Dylan Thomas, Matsuo Basho, TS Elliot, Li Po, and Rabindranth Tagore.
The Nine Muses is a journey through myth, folklore, history, and a museum of intangible things. It is a 'sorrow song' or 'song cycle' on journeys and migration, memory and elegy, knowledge and identity.

Festivals:
Sundance Film Festival 2011
London Film Festival 2010
Dubai International Film Festival 2011
Jeonju Film Festival 2011
Sheffield Documentary Film Festival
Karlovy Vary Film Festival 2011
Jerusalem Film Festival 2011
Viennale, Vienna, Austria 2011
EWA Film Festival, Poland 2011
Orizzonti Finalist, Venice Film Festival 2010

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• documentary
• john akomfrah
• the nine muses
• immigration
• England
• West Indian
• oral history
• arctic