West Indies: The Fugitive Slaves of Liberty
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A landmark of African cinema, equal arts musical theater and political critique, closes out this year’s Third Horizon Film Festival in a newly restored format. Directed by Med Hondo, West Indies: The Fugitive Slaves of Liberty explores the legacy of colonialism and resistance through an ambitious musical set entirely aboard a stylized slave ship, using dance, song and satire to trace the impact of French imperialism across centuries and continents.
The film screens Sunday, June 1 at 7:30 p.m. at the Koubek Center as part of the Third Horizon Film Festival 2025 (THFF25) and its retrospective series You Don’t Get Freedom, You Take Freedom: Caribbean Activist Cinema 1978–1985. This presentation is held in partnership with the Miami Workers Center. Filmmaker and THFF alumna Annabelle Aventurin, who led the film’s restoration, will introduce the screening.
Completed in 1979, West Indies was the first musical produced in Africa and remains one of Hondo’s most celebrated works. Known for films that challenge colonial narratives and elevate African and diasporic voices, Hondo brought a theatrical sensibility to his cinema that continues to influence generations of filmmakers. The screening offers a rare opportunity to see a restored version of one of African cinema’s most ambitious and politically charged works.