Black Code/Code Noir
Black Code / Code Noir brings together various temporally and geographically disparate elements into a critical reflection on two recent events: the respective murders of Michael Brown and Kajieme Powell by police officers in Missouri, USA, 2014. Taking an archaeological perspective on these murders the film looks into the material that exists in the present and traces a route through history to try and find the complex origins of what makes such tragedies occur. Arguing that behind this present is a sedimented history of slavery that has been preserved by the Black Code laws that were written for the colonies in the Americas beginning in the 17th century, the film claims that these codes have transformed into the algorithms that guide the analysis of police big data that lead to the necropolitical control of African Americans today.
Palmarès
FESTIVALS
09/2017 - Festival de Cine Radical, Bolivia
08/2017 - Faito doc, Italy
12/2016 - Transcinema Festival of Non-Fiction, Lima, Peru
11/2016 - SITUATIONS/Filter, Fotomuseum, Winterthur, Switzerland
10/2016 - International Competition, Festival des Cinémas Différents et Expérimentaux, Paris, France
10/2016 - Matatu Festival of Stories, Oakland, USA
10/2016 - The Diaspora Festival of Black and Independent Film, Chapel Hill, USA
10/2016 - Festival des Cinéma différents et expérimentaux, Paris, France
10/2016 - Signos Da Noite, Lisbon, Portugal
09/2016 - Masafat Festival, Darb 1718, Cairo, Egypt
09/2016 - Milano Film Festival, Short Film Competition, Milan, Italy
08/2016 - Fuchsbau Festival, Hannover, Germany
07/2016 - New Horizons International Film Festival, Wroclaw, Poland
06/2016 - The Incantation of the Disquieting Muse, SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin, Germany
05/2016 - Festival Signe de Nuit, Saarbrücken, Germany
05/2016 - Hamburg International Short Film Festival, Hamburg, Germany
04/2016 - LFMC 50: The Hands Are Also Hers, British Film Institute, London, UK
04/2016 - The Eye of the Beholder, (Solo screening) Beursschouwburg, Brussels, Belgium
04/2016 - Leiden International Short Film Experience, Netherlands
04/2016 - European Media Art Festival, Osnabrück, Germany
04/2016 - Lucca Film Festival, Lucca, Italy (Best Short Film Award)
03/2016 - Courtisane, Gent, Belgique
03/2016 - Cinéma du réel, Hors compétition, Paris, France (French National Premiere)
03/2016 - Tampere Film Festival, Programme "What's happening, USA ?", Finland
02/2016 - Transmediale Berlin, Germany
02/2016 - FOKUS, Nikolaj Kunsthal, Copenhagen, Denmark
01/2016 - Rotterdam International Film Festival, Rotterdam, Netherlands
11/2015 - CPH :DOX, Copenhagen, Denmark
10/2015 - BFI London Film Festival, Londres, England (British National Premiere)
10/2015 - New York Film Festival, New York, USA (World Premiere)
SCREENINGS/SHOWS
04/2018 - "What is the Archive?", Cinemateca Portuguesa, Libsonne, Portugal
01/2018 - "Surexposé", Le Bal, Paris, France
11/2016 - Fotomuseum, Winterthur, Germany
11/2016 - Ecoles Européennes Supérieur d’Art de Bretagne, France
11/2016 - La Pellicule ensorcelée, Reims et Charleville, France
11/2016 - Ethnographie et Cinéma, Grenoble, France
11/2016 - Black Code Sessions, (solo screening) Akademie der Künste der Welt, Cologne, Germany
08/2016 - Boom Cut Guerilla, Tank Art Space, Marseille, France
06/2016 - Screening MK2 Beaubourg, Paris, France
06/2016 - Kinesis, solo show, Espace Khiasma, Les Lilas, France
06/2016 - The Incantation of the Disquieting Muse, SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin, Germany
04/2016 - LFMC 50: The Hands Are Also Hers, British Film Institute, London, UK
04/2016 - The Eye of the Beholder, (Solo screening) Beursschouwburg, Brussels, Belgium
02/2016 - Nikolaj Kunsthal, in Fokus 2016 Video Art Festival, Copenhagen, Denmark
Born in Norwich, 1983 and currently living in Paris. In 2007 Henderson received a First Class BA Honours in Film and Video from London College of Communication, and in 2013 graduated with ‘felicitations du jury’ from Le Fresnoy - Studio National des Arts Contemporains. He has shown his work nationally and internationally, including Rotterdam International Film Festival, CPH:DOX, Le Printemps de Septembre, Belo Horizonte Film Festival, Jihlava Documentary Festival, EMAF Osnabrueck, British Film Institute, Centre Pompidou, Museo Reina Sofia, Tate Modern and Whitechapel Gallery.
Henderson’s films can be categorised as documentary-fictions that engage with subjects such as post-colonialism, history, politics and anthropology. His cinema reflects on society’s cultural and material remains and as such his films are essentially archaeological; focusing on the signatures of the archaic in the contemporary.
In 2015, he received the Barbara Aronofsky Price for emerging visual artists in the 53rd edition of the Ann Arbor Festival USA and the Best European Short Film at the International Film Festival T-Mobile New Horizons in Wroclaw, Poland.
His latest films are produced by Spectre and distributed by Phantom (FR) and LUX (UK).
He lives and works in Paris.
Filmography
Overtures, work in progress
Sunstone (2018) Super 16mm and HD, 16:9, Stereo Sound, 34 minutes
The Sea is History(2016) HD 16:9, Dolby 5.1, 21 minutes, 27 minutes
Black Code/Code Noir (2015) HD 16:9, Dolby 5.1, 21 minutes
All That is Solid (2014) HD 16:9, stereo, 15 minutes
Lettres du Voyant (2013) HD 16:9, Dolby 5.1, 40 minutes
Logical Revolts (2012) HD 16:9, Dolby 5.1, 44 minutes
A Walk With Nigel (2010) HD, 16:9, Stereo sound, 22 minutes