WEST INDIES (Med Hondo, 1979) – New 4k Restoration

(Med Hondo, 1979, 113 min, DCP)

Med Hondo’s WEST INDIES is a work of restless cinematic imagination, scathing political satire, and revolutionary postcolonial spirit…of course it’s a musical! Within the confines of a single slave ship set built inside a decommissioned automobile factory, Hondo and his ensemble cast stage four centuries of Western slavery, imperialism, and modern neocolonial exploitation—though decidedly not in that order. Born in Mauritania in 1936, Hondo emigrated to France in the late-50s, where he encountered the racism lurking under the mask of French gentility and the glaring hypocrisy betraying its Republican values of liberty, fraternity, and equality. WEST INDIES exposes it all with biting humor and formal bravado, equally drawing from the kineticism of the Hollywood musical and the bracing artifice of Brecht. As Hondo acknowledged in a 1979 interview, it’s a film necessarily unlike any other: “I’m seeking to find a different way to present images [...] because the historical facts objectively set me apart. Given that I’m telling stories that differ from other stories, my films must be different.”

Unavailable for decades, Hondo’s masterpiece finally appears in a new digital restoration by the Harvard Film Archive and Ciné-Archives using the original 35mm picture negative and magnetic track, making its Chicagoland debut at Block Cinema.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, 40 Arts Circle Drive, Evanston, United States