The Barbican, the London arts centre and cinema venue in the United Kingdom, will present "Project a Black Planet: Film" from Wednesday, 8 July to Sunday, 6 September 2026.
The cinema programme accompanies the Barbican exhibition "Project a Black Planet." It brings together historic films, rare archival works, and contemporary moving-image works on Pan-African ideas in cinema, art, and cultural practice from the 20th century to the present.
The programme opens on Wednesday, 8 July 2026 at 19:00 with "The Pan-African Festival of Algiers," William Klein's documentary on the 1969 Festival Panafricain d'Alger in Algiers, Algeria. The 1969 event was a major Pan-African cultural gathering connected to anti-colonial politics, African liberation movements, and Black international cultural exchange.
Other listed screenings include "Mueda, Memoria e Massacre" with "Soul in the Eye" on Saturday, 11 July 2026; "Abolição," a documentary on slavery and its legacy for Black Brazilians, on Sunday, 12 July 2026; "Hyenas," by Senegalese filmmaker Djibril Diop Mambéty, on Monday, 3 August 2026; "Dread Beat an' Blood," with a recital by British-Jamaican poet Linton Kwesi Johnson, on Tuesday, 4 August 2026; and a relaxed screening of "Handsworth Songs," a British experimental film on race, memory, and Thatcher-era Britain, on Monday, 10 August 2026.
The programme also includes events focused on Cape Verde, Sudan, the United Kingdom, Guyana, Morocco, Ghana, Brazil, Grenada, Cuba, Senegal, Algeria, and Nigeria. Several events connect film to political history, anti-colonial movements, museum collections, archives, Black Atlantic memory, and Pan-African cultural exchange.
"Reflections on FESPACO" will take place on Sunday, 16 August 2026 at 16:30. The listing describes FESPACO as Africa's largest and oldest biannual film festival. The programme will screen two British television documentary portraits of the Burkina Faso-based festival from the 1980s.
The final weekend, on Saturday, 5 September and Sunday, 6 September 2026, includes the "Ambiguous Encounters" events on Havana, Cuba; Dakar, Senegal; Algiers, Algeria; and Lagos, Nigeria. Those events refer to major 20th-century gatherings connected to anti-colonial politics, Black culture, and Pan-African exchange, including the Tricontinental Conference in Havana, the First World Festival of Negro Arts in Dakar, the 1969 Pan-African Festival of Algiers, and FESTAC 77 in Lagos.
The closing listed event is "Ambiguous Encounters: LAGOS: FESTAC 77" on Sunday, 6 September 2026 at 16:00. It includes a screening of "Black Goddess," a 1978 Nigeria-Brazil feature directed by Nigerian filmmaker Ola Balogun.
The listing states that audiences booking two or more films in the "Project a Black Planet" film programme at the same time receive 20% off.
For full details: barbican.org.uk — Project a Black Planet: Film