Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 256: Mon Sep 14

Ganja and Hess (Gunn, 1973): Rio Cinema, 6.30pm

Described by Spike Lee as "one of the most underappreciated filmmakers of his time", African-American playwright turned actor-writer-director Bill Gunn’s radical 1973 vampire movie Ganja & Hess returns as part of the Rio Forever celebrations marking the 50th anniversary of the cinema in its current form.

Ashley Clark, the curatorial director at Criterion and the author of The World of Black Film: A Journey Through Cinematic Blackness in 100 Films, will be online from New York and will be discussing Gunn’s masterpiece with local filmmaker Dionne Edwards, who will host the screening in person.

Time Out review:
Bill Gunn's film maudit was the most ambitious 'black movie' of its day and a milestone for indie film-making in the US. Opening captions explain that academic Dr Hess Green (Duane Jones, Night of the Living Dead) has been invulnerable and addicted to blood since being stabbed (in a parody of Catholic dogma) with a dagger from 'the ancient Black civilisation of Myrthia'. Affluent and (thanks to discreet raids on a local blood-bank) comfortable, he avoids murdering for sustenance until stuck with a new assistant (Gunn), who turns out to be a suicidal alcoholic. Deliberately fragmented and punctuated with disquieting cutaways to art works, the film charts his growing sense that he is afflicted with a curse, across his marriage to his assistant's widow Ganja (Marlene Clark) and his provision of a stud-victim to feed her 'hunger'. Theological musings jostle with sexual-visceral imagery in a mix which is still very potent.
Tony Rayns

Here (and above) is the trailer.