Future Tense: Conversations at Manchester Museum
Trailer for Future Tense: Conversations at Manchester Museum (2023). Run time: 22 minutes
Future Tense approaches the museum as a lively still life in a continuation of Nii-Kwate Owoo’s You Hide Me (1970) and Chris Marker’s Les Statues Meurent Aussi (1953). Using Manchester Museum as a local case study, the film traces the lingering presence of colonial violence at the heart of many museum collections across the United Kingdom. The current debate around the restitution and repatriation of looted objects comes into focus through the experiences of two individuals; Dr. Njabulo Chipangura, the museum’s Curator of Living Cultures; and Councillor Erinma Bell MBE, a community peace activist and Deputy Lieutenant for Greater Manchester.
Chipangura and Bell share their approaches to collaborative community work and their visions for decolonising the future of Manchester Museum’s Africa collection, which remains out of sight in the building’s basement stores. The film features a creative intervention by Manchester-born artist and poet Rochá Dawkins that ties together the museum’s past, present, and future.
awards
Premio Nuovi Sguardi Award - RAM Film Festival
Student Award - World Cultures Film Festival: MAAM X
2025 Social Impact Award Shortlist - Watersprite Film Festival
screening history
2024
Africa Day at Manchester Museum
St.Mortiz Art Film Festival (SMAFF) - Swiss premiere
RAM Film Festival (Rovereto Archiologia Memoria) - Italian premiere
World Cultures Film Festival: MAAM X (Muestra de Antropología Audiovisual de Madrid) - Spain premiere
Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, Poland - Polish debut
Society for Visual Anthropology Film & Media Festival (SVAFMF) - US debut
The Memory Workshop Open Days at University College London (UCL) Urban Rooms
2023
Black History Month: A Portrait of Kano Durbar at Manchester Museum - UK debut
