Field Niggas
Jun 22, 2015
(Khalik Allah, 2014, USA, DCP, 60 min)
Seattle premiere!
Co-presented with The New Foundation Seattle
Skype Q&A with director Khalik Allah!
Over the same summer weeks that saw the death of Eric Garner, filmmaker Khalik Allah was filming Harlem after dark. The 28-year-old street photographer came away with a powerfully impressionistic piece of art that is complexly beautiful, and by turns tragic, heartfelt and terrifying.
Ignoring the strictures of narrative, Field Niggas instead exists as a surreal montage of the faces, voices and identities of people on the street. Here are aging hustlers, baby-faced cops, sex workers and an assortment of addicts and oddballs, all willing to pause and pose for a camera. Behind the slow and beautiful portraits plays an audio collage stitched together from improvisational interviews: snatches of conversation, reflective monologues, bitter reminiscences, stoned ramblings. Voices boast and brag, alongside others that beg for mercy.
The result is an unconventional interplay between sound and image that creates an immersive fever dream.