Christine Turner, the director of Sun Ra: Do The Impossible, will present her 2025 feature documentary about the legendary musician at Mono Space. The film will be projected in HD with the sound broadcast through the OJAS system. The film’s editor, Steven J. Golliday, will join Christine for a discussion and Q&A following the screening.
Film still from Sun Ra: Do The Impossible, courtesy of Christine Turner
“Poet, philosopher, Egyptologist, bandleader. Jazz visionary Sun Ra was all of these – and more. With his ever-evolving band, the Sun Ra Arkestra, he produced more than 200 albums, stretching the boundaries of free-form jazz while weaving ancient Egypt, interstellar metaphors, and scientific musings into a singular musical and spiritual vision of Afrofuturism that continues to reverberate across generations.
Director Christine Turner takes us on an illuminating journey through the life of this multi-faceted artist, gracefully balancing recollections from the Arkestra’s still-devout band members and dancers with insightful interviews from music scholars, and unforgettable film and performance footage of Sun Ra himself.
The result is a portrait – informative, inspiring, and mind-bending – of a man whose audacious vision, otherworldly imagination, and uncompromising artistry helped shape not only the sound of jazz, but the cultural landscape of the 20th century and beyond.”
— via Firelight Films
Photograph by Michael Ori
About Christine Turner
Christine Turner is a filmmaker whose portraits of artists, activists, and everyday people capture the beauty and struggle of life. Previously, her short documentary, The Barber of Little Rock (The New Yorker), about a local barber’s fight for a just economy, was nominated for Best Short Documentary at the 2024 Academy Awards.
Her film J’Nai Bridges Unamplified, released in 2023, follows the titular opera singer as she takes the stage in “A Knee on the Neck,” a tribute to George Floyd (PBS/American Masters).
Other notable work includes: Lynching Postcards: ‘Token of a Great Day’ (Paramount+), which was nominated for a Peabody and won an NAACP Image Award; Homegoings (PBS/POV), a critically-acclaimed portrait of a renowned Harlem funeral director; and the two artist profiles Betye Saar: Taking Care of Business (New York Times Op-Docs) and Paint & Pitchfork (The New Yorker).
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