Sounds of the Desert
The roots of cosmic music, following the interplanetary sounds of Sun Ra’s Arkestra. What a trip!
Hypnotic, ethereal, and seductive, Lithuanian visual artist Emilija Škarnulytė’s film invites you to visit the desert on a mesmerizing musical trip.
A visual odyssey of Sun Ra concepts through their followers – Marshall Allen and Abshalom Ben Shlomo. The film follows Sun Ra Arkestra band members on a journey across the desert, a promised land where Sun Ra once forged his identity. Navigating an astro-galactic world of sound, they find a reason to fight racism, injustice, and the vanity of the modern world, through the inner wisdom of music and sound. It’s a story of infinite peace in a troubled world. A utopian planet where Sun Ra and his prophets celebrate the divine wealth of their spirits
The intergalactic sounds of the Sun Ra Arkestra, one of jazz’s longest-running and most influential ensembles, could bring you anywhere, as they do in this film. Emilija Škarnulytė’s special vision joins its persistent rhythm and amplifies it, taking us beyond this world: from mid-century Chicago to open sand dunes, “Sounds of the Desert” explores landscape, cosmic spirituality, and the many layers of our inner self. A joyful sonic meditation.
Javier Garcia Puerto
Biography
Emilija Škarnulytė (1987) is a Lithuanian-born artist and filmmaker. She studied sculpture at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan and holds an MA from the Tromsø Academy of Contemporary Art. Working between documentary and imaginary realms, she makes films, installations, sculptures, drawings, and immersive time-based media that explore the entanglement of the human, the ecological, and the cosmic. Her feature documentary “Burial” (2022) was screened at over 30 international festivals. She founded and currently co-directs Polar Film Lab, a collective for analogue film practice located in Tromsø and is a member of the artist duo New Mineral Collective.
Filmography
Burial (2022, doc), Dykumos garsai (Sounds of the Desert, 2026)
Screenings
