Conciding with Charles Tolliver celebrates Max Roach @ 100, taking place at the Barbican Hall on Monday 18th November, this screening features two works which bring together cinema and the music of Max Roach.

The first film is a short directed by Gianni Amico and based on Max Roach's We Insist! Freedom Now Suite, this film is a photographic montage that illustrates the history of Black emancipation, with Roach's compositions inspired by Oscar Brown Jr.'s poems. The music is interpreted by Abbey Lincoln's emotive voice and Coleman Hawkins' stirring saxophone.

Koreyoshi Kurahara's 1964 film Black Sun (Kuroi taiyo) is a slightly strange, unconventional anti-buddy picture that follows a young Japanese jazz fanatic and a Black American GI, fugitives in Tokyo, as their relationship evolves into an absurd yet tragic cultural clash, scored by Max Roach. Roach's music features prominently as a backdrop to the jazz obsessed protagonists everyday life (his cat is called Thelonius Monk), and speaks to the films directors Koreyoshi Kurahara celebrated, innovative, free-form filmmaking, which captures the anger and anxieties of a generation living in the shadow of postwar Japan, capturing the jazz clubs, their dark shadows interiors.

The pairing of these two films, both made in 1964, shows the international reach of Roach, and underlines his enduing influence.

Dir. Gianni Amico, Italy, 1964, 16 min

Dir. Koreyoshi Kurahara, Japan, 1964, 95 min

Please note Black Sun contains some racially insensitive language and simulated animal violence.

Black Sun is screening courtesy of Nikkatsu Productions.

Noi insistiamo. Suite per la libertà subito screening courtesy of Bologna Cinetecca.