Other Futures: Unknown Science Fiction Cinemas

The common assumption is that science fiction film, after it first came into existence in Western Europe, in the work of such directors as France’s Georges Méliès, Denmark’s August Blom, and Weimar Republic’s Fritz Lang, has flourished only in Great Britain and United States, achieving its pinnacle with contemporary blockbuster productions. That assumption is wrong. Not only is the genealogy of science fiction cinema more complicated, but, even more importantly, the genre is now truly global. SF films made outside what we call the Global North offer a stunning range of speculative visions of the future, aesthetic choices, and political messages, all of which differ markedly from what most cinema goers expect from genre productions. The Other Futures: Unknown Science Fiction Cinemas showcases science fiction films by directors from Angola, Mexico, Morocco, Qatar, Rwanda, and Vietnam.  

Each screening will be prefaced by an introduction contextualizing the film selected one will followed by a Q&A with the audience.

The series is presented in cooperation with the American Studies Center, University of Warsaw and is a part of Forgotten, Misplaced, Marginalized: Speculations We Don’t See.