'Going to Mars' explores the past and Afrofuturism of poet Nikki Giovanni's work

Paris Alston is co-host of Morning Edition at GBH News.

Gal Tziperman Lotan is a digital producer for GBH’s Morning Edition.

September 29, 2023

Updated September 29, 2023

Paris Alston: This is GBH's Morning Edition. CineFest Latino Boston is underway. The annual festival highlights films by and about Latinos. This year, CineFest Latino is partnering with the Roxbury Film Festival to screen "Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project," a documentary that examines the life of the poet and the revolutionary times through which she lived. It includes footage of Giovanni, then and now, as well as recitations of her work, like the 1968 poem Adulthood.

Nikki Giovanni [previousely recorded]: for a while progress was being made along with a certain
degree
of happiness cause i wrote a book and found a love
and organized a theatre and even gave some lectures on
Black history
and began to believe all good people could get
together and win without bloodshed
then
hammarskjold was killed
and lumumba was killed
and diem was killed
and kennedy was killed
and malcolm was killed

Alston: Ahead of the film screening at the College Corner Theater on Sunday. We caught up with Michèle Stephenson, one of the film's directors and producers, and Sabrina Aviles, founder and executive director of Cinema Latino Boston. Sabrina began by talking about why this film was a good fit for the festival.

Sabrina Aviles: I think that traditionally, everybody thinks that documentary is usually a bunch of talking heads and interviews. And a film like "Going to Mars" is a kaleidoscope, if you will, of just visual imagery that illustrates Nikki Giovanni's poetry in a really kind of magical and challenging in a good way for audiences. So those are the types of films I like to present. Things that leave people, strike them, and they walk away from the theater sort of with the experience that stays with them, if you will.

Alston: Michèle, you directed "Going to Mars" with your spouse and filmmaking partner, Joe Brewster. And not only is this film timely considering our current conversation around space exploration and Afrofuturism, but it also bridges past, present and future. What motivated you two to do this film?

Michèle Stephenson: Poetry came as part of a brainstorming session we were having, and Nikki sort of popped into Joe's brain. And it triggered my also sort of love for her work from my college days, and realized kind of the impact that poetry can have. And we decided to go for it.

Alston: And throughout the film, not only are we hearing Nikki Giovanni's words, we are also seeing a lot of these really provoking close up shots of her eyes. They're very expressive, right? They hold wonder, they hold reflection. And in some instances, they hold a little bit of sorrow. Why was it important to connect viewers with her viewpoint so closely?

Stephenson: Well, in some ways, we saw this as the entire biopic. If you see, this film contains no interviews of anyone talking about the impact of her work or who she was. We really wanted to immerse ourselves in her mind, understanding how her mind works to a certain extent, this really little window. But really figuring out what is the mind of an artist. And the eyes are such a great window into that. So it was a symbolic way of getting the audience to enter this mind space that was so rich in creativity, but also rich in understanding sometimes the lived, painful experience that drives the work of an artist.

Alston: And, Sabrina, this film is screening in partnership with the Roxbury Film Festival. Obviously, Roxbury is a is a historically Black community here in Boston. And when you think about the relationship between not only in terms of Latino diaspora and the Afro-Latino experience, but also the relationship between Black Americans and Latino Americans, why is this film important to share at this festival?

Aviles: I think that, you know, the messages of Nikki and a lot of the messages that are out there are about colonization and, you know, where we all came from are universal themes for communities of colors. It just felt like a very natural fit. I mean, I think, Michèle being of Panamanian and Haitian descent, a lot of the there is a back story, if you will, around the Black American experience, which is not 100% similar to the African experience or Afro-Caribbean experience. But there are commonalities, and I just think it was just a natural fit.

Stephenson: Yeah, I just want to add something also to that in terms of what Nikki speaks to is the Black Atlantic experience. That is really in some ways for me, I see it as a hemispheric experience in terms of acknowledging Middle Passage. I mean, the theme of the film is that the people who can lead us to Mars are Black Americans who went through Middle Passage. And for me, that speaks to not only people of the United States, but our Afro Atlantic roots across this hemisphere. We went through Middle Passage as well, those of us from the Caribbean and Panama. We have to grapple with Saidiya Hartman calls the afterlives of slavery that we have not reckoned with yet in Latin America, or as a LatinX community here in the United States. So it's really about making those connections when we are observing and watching.

Alston: That was Michèle Stevenson, director and producer of "Going to Mars: the Nikki Giovanni Project," which screens Sunday at 5:30 p.m. at the Coolidge Corner Theater as part of Cinefest Latino Boston. We were also joined by the festival's founder and executive director Sabrina Aviles. Tickets in the full festival schedule can be found at Cinefestlatino.com. You're listening to GBH News.

Viewers of the documentary “Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project” won’t see a traditional film about the poet's life.

“I think that traditionally, everybody thinks that documentary is usually a bunch of talking heads and interviews. And a film like 'Going to Mars' is a kaleidoscope, if you will, of just visual imagery that illustrates Nikki Giovanni's poetry,” said Sabrina Aviles, founder and executive director of Cinefest Latino Boston, screening the film this weekend. “So those are the types of films I like to present. Things that leave people, strike them, and they walk away from the theater sort of with the experience that stays with them.”

Cinefest Latino Boston, the annual festival that highlights films by and about Latinos, partnered with the Roxbury Film Festival to screen "Going to Mars." The documentary that examines the life of the poet and the revolutionary times through which she lives. It includes footage of Giovanni, then and now, as well as recitations of her work, like the 1968 poem “Adulthood.”

Michèle Stephenson directed "Going to Mars" with her spouse and filmmaking partner, Joe Brewster.

“Poetry came as part of a brainstorming session we were having, and Nikki sort of popped into Joe's brain,” Stephenson said. “And it triggered my also sort of love for her work from my college days, and realized kind of the impact that poetry can have.”

Throughout the film, audiences not only hear Giovanni’s words but see many provoking, close-up shots of her eyes. They're expressive. They hold wonder, they hold reflection. And in some instances, they hold a little bit of sorrow.

It was a symbolic way to enter into the mind of an artist, Stephenson said.

“In some ways, we saw this as the entire biopic,” Stephenson said. “The eyes are such a great window into that. It was a symbolic way of getting the audience to enter this mind space that was so rich in creativity, but also rich in understanding sometimes the lived, painful experience that drives the work of an artist.”

The collaboration between Cinefest Latino Boston and the Roxbury Film Festival, which celebrates films by people of color, is a poignant one, Aviles said.

“It just felt like a very natural fit,” Aviles said. “Michèle being of Panamanian and Haitian descent, there is a back story, if you will, around the Black American experience, which is not 100% similar to the African experience or Afro-Caribbean experience. But there are commonalities.”

Giovanni and her work speak to what Stephenson called the “Black Atlantic experience.”

“The theme of the film is that the people who can lead us to Mars are are Black Americans who went through Middle Passage,” she said. “For me, that speaks to not only people of the United States, but our Afro Atlantic roots across this hemisphere. We went through Middle Passage as well, those of us from the Caribbean and Panama. We have to grapple with [what] Saidiya Hartman calls the afterlives of slavery that we have not reckoned with yet in Latin America, or as a LatinX community here in the United States.”

"Going to Mars: the Nikki Giovanni Project" screens Sunday at 5:30 p.m. at the Coolidge Corner Theater as part of Cinefest Latino Boston. Tickets and the full festival schedule can be found at Cinefestlatino.com.