Love City Picture Show | TROPICALIA

To mark the 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love, the Museum of the African Diaspora presents a six-part film series exploring the influence of Black culture on the counter culture of the time. Conjure up sights and sounds from San Francisco’s legendary 1967 Summer of Love and invariably it will be of long-haired, pot-smoking young white people dancing to rock music in Golden Gate Park. They were “the hippies” who defined a youth culture and way of life that challenged and shocked the country’s established mores. However what is often unacknowledged is that Black musicians, writers and thinkers in California and beyond helped shape and enrich the cultural developments leading up to the Summer of Love as well as during and immediately afterwards.

Tropicália (Marcelo Machado, 2012, 87 minutes)

In the late 1960s Brazil, the avant-garde arts movement, Tropicália emerged as a refreshing – sometimes whimsical, sometimes outrageous – expression of youth culture in the midst of a conservative and repressive military dictatorship. The musical component incorporated traditional Brazilian music, African rhythms, psychedelic rock and other international influences. The most prominent and energetic artists (Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso, Tom Zé, Gal Costa), who also perform in this film, were from Bahia, the country’s most African state.

An introduction and post-screening discussion will be led by Adalia Selket of KPFA.

This project was made possible with support from California Humanities, a non-profit partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Visit www.calhum.org