AfroPoP: The Ultimate Cultural Exchange, the acclaimed series from Black Public Media and WORLD that has brought documentaries to American audiences for fifteen seasons is bringing them something new in season 16 as it presents narrative features for the first time. Continuing its focus on presenting stories from across the African diaspora, AfroPoP includes two narrative Kenyan films offering audiences a unique look at community, belonging, life and death, all through an Afrofuturistic lens for season 16.
The second episode is Supa Modo from Kenyan filmmaker Likarion Wainaina. Jo, a 9-year-old girl facing terminal cancer, keeps her spirits uplifted through the superhero movies they screen at her children’s hospital. When Jo’s mother decides to bring her home, the girl occupies herself with daydreams of becoming a superhero herself. As her illness and isolation worsen, her older sister, Mwix, joins Jo in her superhero fantasies and soon has the young girl, and their entire village, believing that she may in fact be a true superhero. Freezing a group of children at play? Jo can do it! Thwarting would-be robbers at a nearby store? Here comes Jo to the rescue!
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A family-friendly and honest exploration of childhood illness, life and death, and the importance of family and community, Supa Modo proves that superheroes live forever. See the trailer for Supa Modo here:
Supa Modo premieres on Monday, April 8 at 8 p.m. Eastern (7 p.m. Central) on-air on WORLD and streaming.
A reflective take on the mysteries of life, the afterlife, and the in-between arrives on Monday, April 15 in Kati Kati by Nairobi-born director Mbithi Masya. Kati Kati follows Kaleche, a woman with amnesia who wakes up in the wilderness and makes her way to a lodge called Kati Kati. There she meets a group of strangers all now living there, all now trying to process the loss and regret from their lives and wondering what’s next for them. A moody meditation on life and death, the film presents audiences with an Afrofuturistic view of loss, forgiveness, the now and the hereafter. Watch the Kati Kati trailer here:
Supa Modo and Kati Kati premiere on WORLD on April 8 and April 15 at 8 p.m. Eastern (7 p.m. Central), respectively, when each film begins streaming on the WORLD YouTube Channel, the Black Public Media YouTube Channel and the PBS App.
Other films this season of AfroPoP: The Ultimate Cultural Exchange include the documentaries Commuted by Nailah Jefferson, following a New Orleans woman given second chance at life after her prison sentence is commuted by President Obama; and season finale Freedom Hill from Resita Cox, a profile of the residents of Princeville, North Carolina as they work to save their community from the effects of environmental injustice and the now frequent “100-year” floods that threaten to wash it away.
New episodes of AfroPoP: The Ultimate Cultural Exchange premiere every Monday through April 22 on WORLD.
