Personal Cinema: AKURO/ALVAREZ

Personal Cinema: Akuro/Alvarez

The Next installment in our ongoing Personal Cinema series will be celebrating the work of Andrew Alvarez and Akuro Imbu. Theirs is a  collaborative project between two artists that began quite by chance in 2020 when filmmaker Alvarez moved into the same building as musician, writer and audio engineer Akuro. The telltale signs of art practice, gear carried through the halls and music echoing through the walls piqued their interest in one another and a fruitful artistic partnership came together organically and formed into what Akuro calls “a continuous easy conversation that never looks backwards.”

Both hailing from smaller-city backgrounds (Andrew Alvarez from Rochester, NY; Akuro Imbu from Minneapolis MN), this and other congruences in their personal histories and worldviews made Andrew a natural visual interpreter for Akuro’s raw words and sonic concepts. Characteristic of their project is an on-the-fly production style, only rarely working with other artists and technicians beyond their two-man enterprise. Influenced by chronicles of urban life in the latter half of the 20th century, including Superfly, Downtown 81 and other work by and about Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Gil Scott Heron’s Small Talk at 125th and Lenox, the work of Akuro/Alvarez paints contemporary portraits of community and brotherhood through sound and vision.

Program will begin with a musical performance by Akuro in the Millennium Gallery, accompanied by photographs on display. Films will be followed by a discussion with Akuro Imbu and Andrew Alvarez!

FILMS:

Jazz Cat 3 min

Jazz Cat pt. 2 5 min

Roma 2.5 min

Soulsta 4 min

Music Is My Sanctuary 4.5 min

Hopeless Romantic 4 min

Crewcified 3 min

With Eyes Wide 4.5 min

Us Vs. We 5 min

Verse #1 2.5 min

Verse #2 4.5 min

Verse #3 2 min

ABOY 2.5 min

Hero 3.5 min

TRT: Approx 1 hour

This program was curated by Executive Director Joe Wakeman for Millennium FIlm Workshop. The Personal Cinema series is funded in part by a grant from NYC Dept of Cultural Affairs Cultural Development Fund.