Icarus Films: Seven Songs for Malcolm X

Seven Songs for Malcolm X

Directed by John Akomfrah

Seven Songs for Malcolm X is included in a special DVD Box Set with The Last Angel of History and The Nine Muses

Seven Songs for Malcolm X is included on the same DVD with The Last Angel of History and The Nine Muses

An homage to the inspirational African-American civil rights leader, SEVEN SONGS FOR MALCOLM X collects testimonies, eyewitness accounts and dramatic reenactments to tell the life, legacy, loves, and losses of Malcolm X.

Featuring interviews with Malcolm's widow Betty Shabazz, Spike Lee, and many other, SEVEN SONGS looks for the meaning behind the resurgence of interest in the man whose X always stood for the unknown.

"What makes Seven Songs so provocative is that Akomfrah shows respect for many different interpretations of Malcolm, suggesting that this revolutionary figure belongs to everybody."—The Chicago Reader

"[SEVEN SONGS FOR MALCOLM X] combines riveting footage of the man himself, extracts from his writing, recollections of his family, friends and fellow activists, with [brief] staged tableaux. It's all here: Malcolm X's charisma, the struggle to clarify his beliefs, and the context in which they evolved... an engrossing portrait."—Geoff Ellis, Time Out (London)

Best Feature Length Documentary, 1994 Image D'Ailleurs (Paris)

Certificate of Merit, 1994 San Francisco Film Festival

Best Historical Documentary & Audience Special Merit Awards Winner, 1993 National Black Programming Consortium

Best Use of Archival Footage in a Documentary, 1993 Chicago Film Festival

52 minutes / Color
Release: 1995
Copyright: 1993

For individual consumers (home video)

This DVD is sold for private, home use only.

This title is also available online from:

For colleges, universities, government agencies, hospitals and corporations

Subject areas:
African-Americans, American Studies, Biographies, Civil Rights, History (U.S.)

Related Links:
The Films of John Akomfrah

Related Titles:

The Last Angel of History
An engaging and searing examination of the hitherto unexplored relationships between Pan-African culture, science fiction, intergalactic travel, and rapidly progressing computer technology. (from the Jan., 1998 Catalog Supplement)

The Nine Muses
John Akomfrah's remarkable meditation about chance, fate and redemption.

Finally Got the News
A film about the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, which was, "in many respects the most significant expression of black radical thought and activism in the 1960s." - Manning Marable, Prof. of History, Columbia Univ.