Hard Light Cinema Presents: Lovers Rock (2020)

Come to the ICA auditorium for a screening of Lovers Rock from director Steve McQueen. Suffused with the intoxicating sounds of reggae, dub, and lovers rock, the second installment in McQueen’s Small Axe series unfolds over the course of one late night in early 1980s West London, as a young woman (the luminous Amarah-Jae St. Aubyn) sneaks out to attend a house party. As the alternately languorous and ecstatic rhythms pulse from a homemade sound system, romance sparks on the dance floor, small human dramas play out, and, for a moment, this gathering is a safe haven from the outside world. Aided by the sensuous cinematography of Shabier Kirchner, McQueen captures an exhilarating expression of Black joy in a society often intent on stifling it.

Doors 6 p.m. | Screening 7 p.m.

Series Description:
More than twenty years have passed since the scholar Paul Gilroy coined the framework of the “Black Atlantic” to describe a counterculture within modernity emerging from Black American, European, and African diasporic cultures. Given that these hybrid cultures feature prominently in the ICA’s exhibition offerings this season, the institute has partnered with the Hard Light Cinema collective to present four films that contextualize and deepen our understanding of Black Atlantic aesthetics and experience.

Additional screenings: Wednesday, October 22, Babylon, directed by Franco Rossi (1980); Wednesday, November 19, Atlantics, directed by Mati Diop (2019); Wednesday, December 10, The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire, directed by Madeleine Hunt Ehrlich (2024).