Tickets: $26.50 (Each ticket includes a complimentary drink.)
Important Information:
For the safety of our artists, audiences and staff, face coverings are optional but encouraged for all attendees while inside the theater. Click here for more information about our COVID safety policies.
Genre: Film
Arts & Ideas, Conversation
Featured Film: ASINAMALI
The Apollo continues its collaboration with ImageNation by co-presenting the Cocktails & Sol Cinema Series, a social gathering that includes a film screening, cocktail reception, and a post-show conversation with the filmmakers.
Join us for a screening of Mbongeni Ngema’s 2017 film, Asinamali. The story takes place in a prison, where a group of seven inmates are asked to create and perform a stage play for the governor and his associates. Crammed together in a small cell, they create the play as a way of escaping their reality. Adapted from the 1987 Broadway production of the same name, Asinamali is produced by the creative team of the globally successful film, Sarafina! and features an original soundtrack which draws from Ngema’s Zulu heritage
ImageNation’s Cocktails & Sol Cinema is a continuation of the Apollo’s 2022-2023 season, The Next Movement, an exploration of what’s new, now and next in music, dance, art and ideas.
Ticket Information
Please contact the Apollo Box office at [email protected] or (212) 531-5305 if any other special assistance is required for your visit. Learn more about our accessibility options here.
Covid-19 Guidelines
For the safety of our artists, audiences and staff, face coverings are optional but encouraged for all attendees while inside the theater. Click here for more information about our COVID safety policies.
About ImageNation
ImageNation Cinema Foundation is an innovative Harlem-based non-profit created to develop cinemas and audiences for independent films and music, that depict the global Black experience. ImageNation’s goal is to empower Black communities by presenting a variety of public programs that foster media equity, media literacy, solidarity, cross-cultural exchange and highlight the humanity of Pan-African people worldwide. ImageNation has presented internationally in South Africa, Scotland and Canada; and domestically at Harvard University, MASS MOCA, Lincoln Center and in Dallas, TX, Los Angeles, CA, Baltimore, MD, Chicago, Ill, Indianapolis, IN, and Washington DC. Programs have featured appearances by luminaries such as Spike Lee, Lee Daniels, Ava DuVernay, Stanley Nelson, Ruby Dee, Erykah Badu, Chuck D, Raoul Peck, India. Arie and many others. ImageNation is a founding partner in AFFRM, a national film distribution collective, founded by Ava DuVernay.
Participants
Ronald Kunene
Ronald Kunene
Panelist
Ronald Kunene is a renowned thespian and academic born in Kwa-Thema Springs, East of Johannesburg, South Africa. Mr. Kunene’s middle-class upbringing exposed him to well-known families of entrepreneurs and history makers during an era of pain and racial division in the great nation. Many great leaders like Steve Biko, Mrs. Winnie Mandela and other great political luminaries help shape Mr. Kunene’s socio-political consciousness. Simultaneously, his love of music set him on a professional path that would shape his career.
Mr. Kunene arrived in the United States in 1982, where he briefly attended Oakwood College in Huntsville, Alabama, with legendary singers such as Brian McKnight, Take 6, and Wintley Phipps. He then received a United Nations Scholarship and earned his AA degree at LA City College before earning his BA, MA, and Candidate Philosophy Degree at UCLA. With his love for academics, Mr. Kunene is currently writing his dissertation to receive his Ph.D.
After completing his collegiate career at UCLA, Kunene sought after his passion and goal for telling African stories through “edu-tainment,” within film, television, and broadway. Kuenen’s credits in film include Bopha, The Gods Must be Crazy 2, The Lion King, and Power of One, while television and broadway credits include A Different World, Modern Family, and the popular musical, Sarafina.
As a result of Kunene’s extensive career, he has been honored the opportunity to perform at the Oscars twice. In 1988, he performed the Academy Award-nominated Cry Freedom and again in 1995 when The Lion King won the Oscar for Best Original Music Score. In 1997, Kunene launched himself in an award-winning and magical performance on the Tony stage showcasing his talents in the Broadway play, The Lion King.
Voza Rivers
Voza Rivers
Panelist
Voza Rivers is Executive Producer and founding member of New Heritage Theatre Group (established in 1964), Rivers is Executive Producer and Co-Founder of IMPACT Repertory Theatre with Professor/ Author and Filmmaker, Jamal Joseph. IMPACT is an Oscar and GRAMMY nominated youth division of New Heritage. Rivers and Joseph launched New Heritage Films in 1997 and have completed 50+ documentary films. Rivers also serves as Chairman and Co-Founder of the Harlem Arts Alliance (HAA), founded in 2001, HAA is a cultural arts service membership organization with 350 members. Rivers was nominated for a GRAMMY with South African musician Hugh Masakela and South African playwright/ author and musician Mbogeni Ngema. Sarafina! The Musical was also nominated for 5 Tony awards including “Best Musical”. Rivers has served as Executive Vice President/ COO of Apollo Theater Records, President PRG Records, President/ CEO of Voz Entertainment Group and former Executive President of New York Entertainment and Sports Advisors; a firm representing entertainers and sports personalities providing contract negotiations, financial planning, taxes and legal work. Rivers partnered with Clarence B. Jones Esq., Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., attorney and speech writer in the creation of Greenlight Films, where Rivers served as President and Jones as the Chairman.
VOZA RIVERS is the current Vice President of The Greater Harlem Chamber of Commerce and Co-Founder, Vice Chairman and Executive Producer of HARLEM WEEK Inc., which began in 1974 as a one-day cultural tribute to Harlem that has evolved over the past 47 years to become a month-long tribute and celebration of Harlem’s economic and political history. During the past several years, HARLEM WEEK Inc. has annually attracted over 2 million live attendees from all over the world. HARLEM WEEK Inc., in 2021 moved to a virtual and live media presentation platform and reached a live and virtual global audience of 1.6 billion media impressions.
DJ Edyed
DJ Edyed
DJ Edyed who is based in NYC, is one of the few, if not the only instrumental in the marketing of kwaito music in the USA and Southern Africa. DJ Edyed has played at venues including Madiba Restaurant, Naked Lunch, Red Rooster, Summerstage, NJPA, Harvard Business School and the Corporate Council On Africa.
