The following is a guest post by Zoran Sinobad, Moving Image Research Center, Library of Congress.
On March 30, 1976, a party at the Museum of African Art in Washington, D.C. brought together politicians, Hollywood stars, and leaders of the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, the storied African American organization founded in 1913 at Howard University. Following the party, the guests were driven to the American Theatre at L’Enfant Plaza for the world premiere of “Countdown at Kusini,” a film financed by the sorority itself and released by Columbia Pictures. The first motion picture to be filmed entirely in Africa by African American film industry professionals, the film was a bold and unprecedented venture for the illustrious Black women’s organization.
The origins of “Countdown at Kusini” go back to Delta’s 1973 national convention, which focused on the motion picture and TV industry and the need to counter the negative depictions of Black life coming out of Hollywood, primarily in the form of blaxploitation films. With this goal in mind, the organization later that year established the Arts and Letters Commission, followed by DST Telecommunications, Inc., a nonprofit corporation dedicated to creating and sponsoring works of art that moved away from the Black image prevalent in contemporary mainstream entertainment.
The group’s first project was more than ambitious, making a feature length movie financed by donations from its 85,000 members. The film was to be based on a story by world-music scholar John Storm Roberts about a Black jazz musician who visits an independent African country and becomes involved in the struggle against a puppet government controlled by multinational corporations. Spearheaded by Delta’s present and former presidents, Lillian Benbow and Jeanne Noble, the fundraising drive was a success, and the two women presented the project to Ossie Davis and his wife Ruby Dee, at the time the entertainment industry’s most prominent Black couple. Davis agreed to direct the film, and the stage was set.
“Countdown at Kusini” was filmed entirely in and around Lagos, Nigeria, from late August to the end of October 1974. Ninety percent of U.S. production personnel were Black, and each American crew member had two Nigerian assistants/trainees. The film cost 1.2 million dollars to make. Delta members donated about $400,000 themselves (individual donations averaged between $100 and $200) and raised another $400,000 in outside contributions. The remaining funds were provided by Tan International, a company owned by a group of Nigerian actors, including Jab Adu and Elsie Olusola, both of whom appeared in the film, as well as African American businessman George E. Johnson, whose company at the time sponsored the TV music show “Soul Train.” Versatile Cameroonian musician Manu Dibango provided the original score and by the end of 1975, after several re-edits, the film was finally ready to be unveiled to the world.
Delta made a deal with Columbia Pictures to release the film and laid out a distribution strategy based on the purchasing power of its membership, with the organization’s chapters in fifteen cities across the U.S. being responsible for filling the theatres for each performance over at least two weeks. Columbia agreed with the plan and pledged $375,000 to promote the film. “Countdown at Kusini” went into general release in early April 1976, but following poor reviews and before Delta’s distribution plan could even be implemented, the studio pulled the film from theaters.
Needless to say, “Countdown at Kusini” lost money, earning a meagre $145,000 during its initial four-week run. It was shown at the 1976 Karlovy Vary film festival in Czechoslovakia and eventually sold to East Germany (German Democratic Republic), but that had little to no effect on its bottom line. In January 1977, the original negative was put up for sale at a public auction to satisfy the lien of Cinetech Color Laboratory (the account holders were listed as partners of the “Kusini Company”). In the final chapter of the story, “Countdown at Kusini” was briefly resurrected and rereleased in 1979 under the title “Cool Red.” After that, the film disappeared without a trace. It has never been released on any home video format and at the time of writing is not available on any streaming platform.
When “Countdown at Kusini” was registered for copyright in 1976, a 35mm print was deposited with the Library of Congress. In the fall of 2024, TV and film producer Cheryl Hawkins and actor and playwright Clayton LeBouef visited the Library’s Moving Image Research Center and asked to view the film. They knew much more about it than we did, and when the nearly 50-year-old copy turned out to be in pristine condition, it didn’t take long to come to a decision to screen it in the Pickford Theater during Black History Month. The long forgotten “Countdown at Kusini,” a seminal and unique work in so many ways, has been long overdue for a reevaluation, and it is our hope that the screening and this blog post will contribute to bringing it back into the public eye.
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