Programmed January 2024

Roots & Revolution: Reggae on Film

Featuring an introduction by Criterion curatorial director Ashley Clark A perfect storm of rhythm, bass, melody, and political and spiritual messaging, reggae was born in Jamaica in the late 1960s and early ’70s, and has since gone on to become one of the most influential, popular, and genre-exploding forms of music around the globe. The first classic reggae film, Perry Henzell’s wildly entertaining drama The Harder They Come , starring the great Jimmy Cliff as singer-outlaw Ivanhoe Martin, thrummed with hard-edged authenticity and set a template for future classics like Rockers and the recently rediscovered Babylon , whose casts of real-life reggae stars and industry figures lend a sense of raw reportage to fictional narratives. Unsurprisingly, many documentarians have also turned their gaze on reggae’s key trailblazers ( The Upsetter: The Life and Music of Lee Scratch Perry , Omega Rising Women of Rastafari ), amplifying the movement’s resounding cinematic legacy.