Produced between 1966 and 1969, these early student films range from deconstructed narratives and deceptive agitprop to experimental essays, revealing not only the protean, multifaceted style of the young Skip Norman, but also an incendiary conceptual throughline that would inform later self-authored projects and collaborations, including a commitment to social justice and critiques of hypocritical liberalism.

Both Cultural Nationalism and Strange Fruit take explicit inspiration from the Black Panther Party—the former borrowing a Bobby Seale text that mounts an adroit challenge to counterrevolutionary “Black Capitalism,” and the latter expanding upon documentation of a Seale speech in Copenhagen to illustrate and amplify the activist’s message. Wedding nonfiction with noir-tinged narrative, featuring Norman in a small role, the mostly wordless debut Riffi is an ambitious, cryptic reflection on the act of pursuit, whether in the context of romance or of violence. Directly inspired by Amiri Baraka’s 1963 analysis of “Negro Music in White America,” the experimental Blues People boldly confronts and challenges the dynamics of fetishization, holding up a mirror to anti-Black racism not only in the United States but also in Germany in a pointed deconstruction of desire and dominance. As a prelude, the program features a fleeting glimpse of Norman captured on the streets of Berlin by his friend Ingrid Oppermann. 

—Jesse Cumming