The Magic City - Birmingham According to Sun Ra
Wednesday, November 25th, 2026
18:30 doors open
19:00 start
Melkweg, Amsterdam
With our next screening we will go back to the early years of Sun Ra. Before the world (and the cosmos) came to know him as the Afro-futurist pioneer of "space jazz", he was born as Herman Poole Blount in Birmingham, deep in the heart of Alabama. The Belgian documentary 'The Magic City - Birmingham According to Sun Ra' sheds light on how this often-overlooked yet magical music city helped shape the enigmatic visionary in his formative years. Filmmakers Guillaume Maupin and Pablo Guarise closely involved the city and its residents in telling not just Sun Ra's story, but that of their community. Inevitably, that story is marked by a legacy of slavery, segregation, and racism. Yet Sun Ra's gaze remained fixed on a more harmonious future. As he says at the start of the film: "My story is not part of history. Because history repeats itself, but my story is endless."
