Coined as a term in the 1990s, Afrofuturism pertains to music, art, literature, poetry, and cinema based on speculative fictions addressing the concerns of Africans and the diaspora. It is a cultural critique and exploration of identity and multiplicity; upturning the false narratives concerning Africa's people and creating a new history told through science-fiction, technology and fantasy.

As part of the launch of No Direct Flight—a new series exploring the aesthetics of the African diaspora—British-Ghanaian director Curtis Essel shares a list of films with an Afrofuturist edge that have inspired his cinematic style.

Welcome II the Terrordome (1995)

Welcome ll the Terrodome is set in a gritty dystopia where Black people have been relegated to living in a slum called the Terrordome. Following the life of Spike and his sister Anjela, racial tensions threaten to boil over in the wake of a young boy’s death. Weclome II to the Terrordome made history as the first theatrically distributed British feature directed by a Black woman. Onwurah’s fusion of political commentary and genre spectacle looks positively prescient.

The Last Angel of History (1996)

Directed by British filmmaker John Akomfrah, The Last Angel of History is a sci-fi documentary about Africa’s history and memory. The film is a hybrid documentary and fictional narrative taking the viewer on a journey from the margins of black culture to its interstellar heart. With segments of the documentary incorporating traditional talking-head clips from musicians, writers, and social critics, as well as archival footage and photographs, The Last Angel of History has been described as one of the most influential video-essays of the 1990s.

Sun Ra: A Joyful Noise (1980)

Director Robert Mugge follows jazz musician Sun Ra in a film that documents his performances, interviews, rehearsals, poetry readings, and extensive improvisations. The entire film was shot on location in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C. between 1978 and 1980. Sun Ra: A Joyful Noise may not be an example of the Afrofuturist storytelling aesthetic but Sun Ra was a legendary musician, known for his cosmic philosophy and Afrocentric, space-themed recordings looking to a better future for black people on Earth.

Curtis Essel's extended viewing...

Heritage Africa (1989)

Set in 1955 in the violent run-up to Ghanaian independence, this ambitious political drama directed by Kwaw Ansah follows the story of a public servant during the colonial period who rises to become the first black District Commissioner, eventually abandoning his culture, heritage and all that has real meaning to him.

The Little Girl Who Sold the Sun (1999)

Directed by Djibril Diop Mambéty, the Senegalese film director describes what would be his final film as "a hymn to the courage of street children." The Little Girl Who Sold the Sun follows a young, illiterate, disabled girl named Sili from a shantytown on the outskirts of Dakar. One day she decides to abandon her blind grandmother’s vocation of begging on the street and take up the physically demanding job of selling newspapers. Mambety’s little film is a big-hearted odyssey about daring to imagine what you can be.

Wonders of the Universe (2011)

This BBC television series, presented by Britain's favorite rock 'n' roll science professor Brian Cox, reveals how fundamental scientific principles and laws explain not only the story of the universe but also answer mankind's greatest questions.