Image credit: Sundance Institute

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MoAD's new exhibition, UNBOUND, asks how Black artists use the cosmic to rupture earthly limits. “Beyond the Horizon” extends this inquiry by exploring the boundless worlds of Black moving-imagery and offering a thought-provoking look at 21st-century Black cinema across the Diaspora that examines outer space, cyber-space, and dream-space as laboratories for the cultivation of freedom and as warning sirens for dystopia, data mining, and the rise of "the digital plantation."

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Join noted author, scholar, filmmaker, and MoAD’s Cultural Critic-in-Residence Dr. Artel Great (SFSU) for an insightful presentation that will deepen audiences' understanding of the aesthetic, social, cultural, and political impulses of an innovative strand of contemporary Black cinema from around the globe that explore Black cosmology and ontology, while re-imagining Black autonomy beyond the limitations of the physical and the physics of a colonial past. Films covered in the program will include: Atlantics by Mati Diop, Pumzi by Wanuri Kahiu, The Burial of Kojo by Blitz Bazawule, and more.

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The centerpiece of the program will be anchored by Saul Williams' & Anisia Uzeyman’s percussive feature film Neptune Frost which visualizes a Rwandan hacker-scape where salvaged circuitry becomes a form of revolutionary armor for a rising rebellion. Dr. Great will provide a stirring analysis of how each motion picture re-maps Black consciousness beyond gravity, detailing a broader constellation of the cinematic universe that includes Black African and Diasporic visions that push beyond the horizons of traditional film and media discourses.

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Attendees will receive private access to view the film Neptune Frost on-demand prior to the event.

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This event is Virtual and will be held on Zoom. After you register for this program, you will receive an acknowledgement email with the link to join the program on Zoom. You will also receive a link to view the film NEPTUNE FROST on-demand prior to the event. If you don't receive the emails, check your junk mail or spam folder. If you still can't access it, please contact programs@moadsf.org.

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Dr. Artel Great (@dr.artelgreat) is the inaugural Cultural Critic-in-Residence at MoAD and the George and Judy Marcus Endowed Chair in African-American Cinema Studies and Associate Professor of Cinema and Media Studies at San Francisco State University. He is also an Independent Spirit Award-nominated filmmaker and author of the groundbreaking new book, The Black Pack: Comedy, Race, and Resistance.

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This program is presented in conjunction with the exhibition UNBOUND: Art, Blackness & the Universe, on view from October 1, 2025 - August 16, 2026.

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