Black Achievement Month
ARCHIVES OF TOMORROW - AFROFUTURISM ON FILM
OCTOBER 2026
For Black Achievement Month, Filmhuis Den Haag presents Archives of Tomorrow, a film programme exploring Afrofuturism as a space for imagination, transformation and possibility.
How do we imagine the future, and who gets to imagine it? Afrofuturism offers one way of asking these questions. Rooted in Black histories, cultures and experiences, it looks beyond the present to imagine alternative worlds and possibilities. But Afrofuturism is not limited to distant futures, advanced technology or outer space. It can also be found in music, literature, visual art, fashion and film, and in the possibility of looking at the present from a different perspective.
At its heart, Afrofuturism is an act of imagination. It asks who gets to inhabit the future and what becomes possible when Black experiences are placed at its centre. It can be a space of resistance, but also of play, celebration and transformation. Its many forms are shaped by both the past and the present, creating new ways of imagining what comes next.
Archives of Tomorrow brings together films that approach these ideas from very different directions. From Sun Ra’s cosmic jazz and radical mythology in Space Is the Place, to the Afrofuturist cyberpunk of Neptune Frost and the supernatural and ancestral worlds of Augure. The programme also includes the comic book adaptation Blade, the archival and musical time travel of The Last Angel of History, and Baloji’s surreal short film Zombies.
Together, these films show that there is no single definition of Afrofuturism. Sometimes the future is imagined through technology and other worlds; sometimes it is found in ancestral knowledge, music, memory or mythology. Above all, the programme invites us to consider what futures become possible when we dare to imagine them differently.
Films in this program
Augure
Baloji, 2023
A homecoming turns into a reckoning when four people accused of sorcery join forces to escape the destinies imposed upon them.
Blade
Stephen Norrington, 1998
A half-vampire hunter takes on a rising vampire leader whose quest for ultimate power threatens to unleash an ancient blood god.
The Last Angel of History + Zombies
John Akomfrah, 1996 and Baloji, 2019
Two films that trace Afrofuturism across music, technology, history and visions of the future.
Neptune Frost
Anisia Uzeyman & Saul Williams, 2021
In a discarded-computer camp in Burundi, a forbidden connection gives rise to a radical hacker rebellion.
Space is the Place
John Coney, 1974
Sun Ra descends on Oakland with a spaceship, a band and an audacious plan to build a new world beyond Earth.
Special Events
Audiovisual experience by CPT Collective
Blade | October 19th
On October 19th, Amsterdam collective Coloured People Time brings Welcome to Afrofuturism to Filmhuis Den Haag, exploring Black empowerment through film, electronic music and culture. Together, we journey through space and time, from Sun Ra’s cosmic jazz and the myth of Drexciya to the cyberpunk vampire world of Blade. Expect an audiovisual exploration of Afrofuturism before the screening of Blade.
Introduction by Dr. Lenore Todd
Space is the Place | October 26th
Dr. Lenore Todd, lecturer at Leiden University College, introduces Space Is the Place, exploring Sun Ra’s radical vision of Black identity, art and the future.
Exposition by NÉNÉ
Foyer Zaal 5 | All throughout October
NÉNÉ is an artist based in Rotterdam. Her paintings, installations, and spatial explorations are inspired by her interest in Afrofuturism. Explore her exposition during Black Achievement Month at the foyer next to Zaal 5.