The Inheritance
Join us for a special screening of Ephraim Asili’s debut feature-film The Inheritance (2020), produced at EMPAC on a film set constructed in Studio 1—Goodman. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with the artist.
Ephraim Asili’s The Inheritance weaves histories of the West Philadelphia–based MOVE Organization, the Black Arts Movement, and dramatizations of the life of the filmmaker when he was a member of a Black activist collective. Centering on what Asili describes as a “speculative reenactment” of his time in a West Philadelphia collective, the actors scripted lives on set are entwined with cameos by MOVE's Debbie Africa, Mike Africa Sr., and Mike Africa Jr., and poet-activists Sonia Sanchez and Ursula Rucker.
After the EMPAC preview of The Inheritance in Spring 2020 was postponed due to COVID-19 protocols, it premiered at Toronto International Film Festival and went on to screen at festivals and museums around the world including the New York Film Festival and the National Gallery of Art. The film was awarded the Grand Prize at Paris film festival Cinéma du Réel in 2021.
Main Image: Ephraim Asili, Production still from The Inheritance. Photo: Mick Bello/EMPAC.
Trailer: Ephraim Asilis' The Inheritance (2020).
The Inheritance by Ephraim Asili. Trailer by Peter O’Brien (2020)
The Inheritance by Ephraim Asili. Trailer by Stella Seganti (2020)
The Inheritance by Ephraim Asili. Trailer by Connor Murphy (2020)
Dates + Tickets
Covid-19 Policy
Campus community: RPI protocols apply. ID check required.
Off-campus audience: Proof of Vaccination or masking with N-95 mask required.
Some events may require everyone to wear a mask in the venue.
Masks will be available on entry.
EMPAC Fall 2022
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Press Mention
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The Inheritance is commissioned by EMPAC / Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and is supported by the New York State Council on the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts. The Inheritance is distributed by Grasshopper Films.