Blackity Black
A new regular screening strand at The Electric Palace Cinema celebrating excellence in Black cinema.
A Co-created collaboration with Electric Palace Cinema &
Afri-Co-Lab
What is blackity black?
Blackity Black deep collaboration between Afri-Co-Lab, Anna Maria Nabirye, The Electric Palace Cinema, & Julia Andrews-Clifford.
Born from a desire to welcome and create an authentic invitation to Black and Global Majority audiences into the Electric Palace Cinema.
Originally funded by Film Hub South East, Afri-Co-Lab & Electric Palace Cinema.
Blackity Black
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Celebrates excellence within Black film & TV, new releases, classics & film from across the diaspora
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Is a curated programme of film & events by Black community curators for Black, Global Majority & white allied audiences
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Celebrates Black representation both in front of & behind the camera
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Is a permanent strand within the Electric Palace’s regular programme
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Creates culturally specific contexts to watch Black Cinema
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Welcomes diverse audiences from across our town
Blackity Black 2025 pilot
Blackity Black’s Pilot Year was not only about curating exciting titles from both new releases to cinematic greats from the canon of film excellence.
Curator Anna Maria Nabirye with support from Electric Palace Co-director & Head Programmer- Julia Andrew Clifford created unique moments steeped in Black culture to hold the collective experience of communal film watching.
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Making space for connection, appreciation -not appropriation and meaningful cultural exchange.
The pilot
The Pilot was more than just film screenings, it was:
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Consultations with Community stakeholder
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Gatherings
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Anti-racist training
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Volunteer Recruitment from Black & Global Majority community
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A deep collaborative review of working practices
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Worked with paid Black chefs, restaurants, Poets, DJs, artists, facilitators, cinematographers, directors, screen writers, historians, & musicians
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A series of curated events within the cinema
Launch Event
Oct 7th
In Person Conversation with BAFTA-winning director:
Akinola Davies Jr.
Join us at 6pm for an on-stage conversation around Black film, African film, diaspora voices and visioning soft Black male fatherhood in this one-off event before our screening of his award-winning feature debut, My Father's Shadow.
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Hosted by Blackity Black curator Anna Maria Nabirye and joined by screenwriter Trix Worrell.
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Tickets are £5 or free with a ticket to the screening of My Father's Shadow.
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screening of BAFTA-winning film:
my father's shadow
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Nigeria, 1993: Kid brothers Remi (Chibuike Marvelous Egbo) and Akin (Godwin Chimerie Egbo) get to spend the day with their estranged father Folarin (Sope Irisu) and visit dizzying, kaleidoscopic Lagos for the first time. But Folarin is on a mission, and his chances of success are threatened by the unfolding presidential election – the first since the military takeover 10 years before – and the chaos he fears will follow.
This is a gorgeous day-in-the-life-style coming-of-age film, sprawling and beautifully made. Co-written with his brother Wale Davies, based the film partly on his own life, and it feels like a hazy memory, evocatively summoning the sights, sounds and smells of an eventful 24 hours in Lagos. ​
Meet the Blackity Black Curator:
Anna Maria is an interdisciplinary artist-director-performer. She has just been awarded a photographic residency with the Peter Marlow Foundation & is an alumni of the
Ucross Foundation (USA).
Current projects include: The Funnest Room in the House, exploring Black British kitchens as portals to ancestral homelands, in partnership with Whitechapel Gallery,
Towner Eastbourne & S.A.W.N. Dance show A’N’D with Darragh O’Leary in development with White Rock Theatre, Battersea Arts Centre & South East Dance. Up In Arms (co-created with Annie Saunders) produced by Artsadmin, commissioned by De La Warr Pavilion (2023) -they are currently writing the book of this work.
She has worked extensively as an actor credits include the National Theatre, Shakespeare’s Globe, BBC 1 & 2, Netflix and Film4.
Other collaborative works include Everything For Everyone And Nothing For Us (Hayward Gallery) & Jarmin Award nominated Deep State (Film and Video Umbrella) with Mirza and Butler. Motherhoody & award winning short doc One Prick At A Time with Jess Mabel Jones.
She is Co-Founding Co-Director of Afri-Co-Lab, a creative community dreaming space in Hastings.
Without joy there can be no Liberation.
