MIFF Bright Horizons Special Screening: Slam 4K Restoration Unclassified 18+ 100 mins
MIFF 2022 Bright Horizons Award winner Saul Williams (Neptune Frost), who returns to the festival as a member of this year’s Bright Horizons Jury, presents this newly restored American indie classic in which he plays a young Black prisoner who seizes poetic justice.
When Ray is arrested during a drug deal gone wrong in Washington, DC, he insists he wasn’t involved. But he’s young and Black, so his public defender convinces him to take a plea deal for a reduced sentence. In jail, he meets Lauren, who teaches a writing class for inmates and encourages Ray to embrace his literary gifts; eventually, Ray is welcomed into her world of slam poetry. But are words enough to break a cycle of systemic oppression?
Twenty-five years ago, Slam bottled a 1990s US zeitgeist: the fierce optimism of the open-mic café scene, where Williams (who stars as Ray), Sonja Sohn (who plays Lauren), Bönz Malone, Beau Sia and Liza Jesse Peterson were among the writers and performers using poetry to spearhead social critique and criminal justice reform. Written collaboratively by its cast and director, the multi-award-winning independent filmmaker Marc Levin, Slam won both the Sundance Dramatic Grand Jury Prize and the Cannes Camera d’Or in 1998. Now, this glowing 4K digital restoration by the Sundance Institute, the Academy Film Archive and UCLA is ready to inspire a new generation to speak out against injustice.
“A landmark film that defies easy categorization. Part gritty prison drama, part inner-city ghetto chronicle … Emotionally powerful and technically innovative.” – Variety (1998)
Tickets
31
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