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A still from When I Get Home. A Black man is riding a white horse down a road at night.
Still from When I Get Home (2019), dir. Solange Knowles.
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2019 Closing Night Film Announced

The BlackStar Film Festival (BlackStar) is thrilled to announce the Philadelphia premiere of When I Get Home, a film from visual artist and singer/songwriter Solange Knowles. The extended director’s cut will feature new scenes and musical arrangements of her interdisciplinary performance art film “When I Get Home”. 

Maori Holmes, Director of BlackStar, shares, “I continue to be impressed with Solange’s multi-disciplinary artistic practice in its unapologetic commitment to a radical black aesthetic. She is a force, imbued by both reverence to her creative ancestors and a futuristic swagger. I am excited that she has chosen BlackStar for her festival debut; When I Get Home takes on a much more layered meaning!”

When I Get Home will screen on August 4th, as part of BlackStar’s Closing Night Film Presentation of films that examine cultural history through music, and/or collaborations with musicians who are also directors.  Program lineup is as follows:

As Told To G/d Thyself (2019)

Directors: The Ummah Chroma (Bradford Young, Terence Nance, Jenn Nkiru, Marc Thomas & Kamasi Washington)

The story of the sacred youth and the stakes of a cosmic journey, where the embodiment and the pain, pleasure and sublimation there-in are non-negotiable.

Short Narrative

BLACK TO TECHNO (2019)

Director: Jenn Nkiru

BLACK TO TECHNO is a music documentary charting the anthropological, socio-economical, geopolitical roots of techno from Detroit and how it travelled and translated into becoming the soundtrack to the fall of the wall in Berlin.

Short Documentary

When I Get Home (2019)

Solange Knowles

Synopsis: Visual artist and singer/songwriter Solange Knowles presents an extended directors cut featuring new scenes and musical arrangements of her interdisciplinary performance art film “When I Get Home”. The film will premiere across renowned Museums and Contemporary Arts Institutions across USA and Europe from 17 July before closing as part of Chinati Weekend on 13 October 2019

The film was directed and edited by Solange Knowles with contributing directors Alan Ferguson, Terence Nance, Jacolby Satterwhite, and Ray Tintori. Additional art courtesy of Houston artists Autumn Knight and Robert Pruitt and collage work by Gio Escobar of Standing on The Corner. The film also features new sculptural work by the artist, “Boundless Body” (2019), an 8 by 100 ft. rodeo arena displayed in the desert of Marfa, which sits alongside many architectural wonders in the film, such as the Rothko Chapel at the Menil Collection and the I. M. Pei designed Dallas City Hall.

When I Get Home is an exploration of origin and spiritual expedition. The film confronts how much of us have we taken or left behind in our evolutions, and how much fear determines this? The artist returned to her home state of Texas to answer this through an expedition of a futurist rodeo uplifting the narrative of black cowboys and honoring her Houston lineage through this visual meditation.

The BlackStar Film Festival (BlackStar) runs August 1-4, 2019, in various venues across Philadelphia.  The 8th edition of the festival continues a legacy of film presentations and conversations that celebrate black, brown and indigenous films from around the globe.  For more information on the film details, tickets, attending filmmakers, and special receptions, please visit BlackStarFest.org

If you are interested to cover the festival, and require a media credential, please email your request to: [email protected].

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