Phoenix in partnership with Dare to Diva present the Black Resistance and Power of the Supernatural film programme.

Ganja & Hess

Director: Bill Gunn

USA 1973, 1hr 53mins

Language: English

Genre: Horror/Drama

Certificate: 18

Flirting with the conventions of Blaxploitation and horror cinema, Bill Gunn’s revolutionary independent film Ganja & Hess is a highly stylised and utterly original treatise on sex, religion and African American identity. Duane Jones (Night of the Living Dead) stars as anthropologist Hess Green, who is stabbed with an ancient ceremonial dagger by his unstable assistant (director Bill Gunn), endowing him with the blessing of immortality and the curse of an unquenchable thirst for blood.

Image credit: Still from Ganja & Hess (1973).