AGHDRA (2021)

In a Cryptic New Film, Arthur Jafa Inspires Awe—and Hope—for Black Futurity

With AGHDRA, Arthur Jafa takes his work in a much different direction. The film contains just a handful of cuts; all of the footage is original. It alludes to some of the concerns Jafa explored in Love Is the Message—the tenuousness of Black life, and the twinned notions of beauty and fear that can accompany it—but this new film does so in relatively oblique ways. Gone is the music video–style pacing of Jafa’s past works. In its place is a slower kind of montage that inspires introspection.