Welcome II The Terrordome (Blu-ray)

Ngozi Onwurah’s radically ahead-of-its-time dystopian sci-fi film Welcome II the Terrordome—the first theatrically distributed British feature by a Black woman—furiously evokes a near future in which Black people are segregated within a slum called the Terrordome, where simmering violence and anger threaten to boil over in the wake of a young boy’s murder. Named after an incendiary single by Public Enemy, the film uses its rap soundtrack to both comment on and drive its narrative, part of a sensibility in which American, British, and African cultures collide and the past, present, and future collapse. In this prescient work, Onwurah builds a visionary, Afrofuturist cosmology that connects the history of slavery to modern-day systemic racial brutality. DIRECTOR-APPROVED BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES • New 2K digital restoration, supervised and approved by cinematographer Alwin H. Küchler, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack • New audio commentary featuring Küchler, director Ngozi Onwurah, and Criterion curatorial director Ashley Clark • Meet the Filmmakers: Ngozi Onwurah, a Criterion Channel original interview • Three short films by Onwurah—Coffee Coloured Children (1988), And Still I Rise (1993), and Hang Time (2001)—with a new introduction by the director • English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing • PLUS: An essay by poet and critic Kadish Morris