Space is the Place

Dir. John Coney. 1974, 85 mins. Restored DCP. With Barbara Deloney, Sun Ra, Raymond Johnson, Marhsall Allen. Space Is the Place is a rare, unmissable trash-culture, science-fiction classic. Starring the Afrofuturism jazz star Sun Ra, this loosely based biopic offers the uninitiated a tantalising glimpse into his fantastical world. Born in 1914 as Herman Poole Blount, he had a vision in his 1930s that he had somehow originated from Saturn and promptly changed his name to Sun Ra. Dressed from then on in elaborate Egyptian-inspired papal robes, and arriving in a music powered space ship, he spent the next half-century on a mission to enlighten the world with his unique experimental music, and save the black race from social injustice by starting an all-black colony in the sky, while recruiting a legion of fans along the way.