Wednesday, April 8, 2026 - 7:00pm

rs Nova Workshop partners with Lightbox Film Center to present the Philadelphia premiere of a new documentary about the early years of Sun Ra at Bok Auditorium on Wednesday, April 8, 2026.

On May 22, 1914, Herman Poole Blount arrived on Earth in the city of Birmingham, Alabama. Many years later he would become known as Sun Ra, and would go on to become one of the most extraordinary and prolific jazzmen of the century, as well as the founder of a strange cosmic philosophy. Birmingham, known as “the Magic City,” was a segregated city in the industrial South. At first sight a hostile environment, it was here that Sun Ra laid the foundations of his mystical thinking and his music, seeing in his city an incredible world full of signs. He left at the age of 32 for Chicago, only to return and end his time on the planet there in 1993. A portrait of the artist as a young man as much as a portrait of a city, The Magic City: Birmingham According to Sun Ra tells the story of Sun Ra’s early years in this city-universe that was at once political and magical, everyday and fantastic, disturbing and fascinating. The screening will be followed by a conversation with the filmmakers and special guests and an hommage to Cassandra Griffen, photographer and a Sun Ra & The Arkestra friend from Birmingham.