Dreams are Colder than Death: Screening & Talk with Arthur Jafa

A screening and discussion with acclaimed filmmaker and cinematographer Arthur Jafa, sponsored jointly by the Barnard Center for Research on Women in conjunction with the Practicing Refusal Working Group, and the International Center for Photography’s Center for Visual Culture. Jafa’s work in TNEG film studio (the studio he runs with co-creators Elissa Blount Moorhead and Malik Sayeed) seeks to create a black cinema that equals the “power, beauty and alienation of black music.” Against the contemporary backdrop of the painful insight brought to our nation’s attention by Black Lives Matter, Jafa’s work continues the enduring effort to establish a restorative aesthetic horizon, one capable of rendering the full complexity of black lives. The event showcased three of Jafa’s most recent film shorts: “Dreams are Colder than Death,” “Love is the Message,” and “Apex.” The screening was followed by this panel discussion featuring three members of BCRW’s Practicing Refusal Working Group: Christina Sharpe, Reina Gossett and Tavia Nyong’o.