Sounds of the Desert, a new documentary centered on Sun Ra Arkestra musicians Abshalom Ben Shlomo and Marshall Allen, will make its world premiere on Nov. 18 at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival in Estonia.
The film comes from Lithuanian writer, director, producer and artist Emilija Škarnulytė, whose work includes Burial. Combining interviews, archival material and live performance, the documentary explores the musicians’ lives, work and cosmic visions through the sound of one of jazz’s longest-running avant-garde ensembles.
Its two subjects bring different perspectives to that story. Ben Shlomo, who had a decade-long friendship with Škarnulytė, died in 2024. Allen remains an active performer at age 102.
A Musical Journey Across Landscapes
Rather than confining the story to conventional interviews or a single setting, Sounds of the Desert moves through places connected to the Arkestra and its music. Those locations include the Arkestral House of Sun Ra in Philadelphia, Chicago, a Lithuanian forest and the Negev Desert.
The Sun Ra Arkestra was founded by Sun Ra in Chicago in the mid-1950s. Its combination of avant-garde music, ritual, spectacle and cosmic philosophy became a foundational influence on Afrofuturism, including visions of outer space as a domain of Black freedom.
Škarnulytė said her relationship with Ben Shlomo gave her a personal way into that creative world.
“I learned that home is not always somewhere we return to; sometimes it is something we create from what we carry,” the filmmaker said. “My decade-long friendship with Abshalom Ben Shlomo opened a path into the Arkestra’s universe, where music holds memory, and imagination makes other ways of living possible.”
That idea of music carrying memory informs the film’s movement between its subjects, historical material, performances and landscapes. For Škarnulytė, the Arkestra’s expansive vision was not an escape from reality, but a means of confronting and reshaping it.
“I wanted Sounds of the Desert to move through that universe, listening to the echoes between people, landscapes and histories,” she said. “The Arkestra created a cosmos not to turn away from the world, but to find the strength to live within it and transform it.”
Behind the Documentary
Škarnulytė wrote, directed, produced and executive produced Sounds of the Desert through her company, Mirror Matter Productions.
Norway’s Mer Film serves as the documentary’s development producer. The company has also been involved with recent festival titles including Harry Lighton’s Pillion (2026), Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value (2025) and Magnus von Horn’s The Girl With the Needle (2025).
The documentary will screen in the Rebels With a Cause Competition at the 30th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, also known as PÖFF. A trailer has also been premiered by The Hollywood Reporter, offering an advance look at the project’s musical and visual approach.
ShowBiz Take
Sounds of the Desert matters because its focus is both personal and historical. Through Ben Shlomo and Allen, the film examines the people within an ensemble whose ideas joined music with philosophy, performance and imagined cosmic possibilities.
The documentary’s use of live performance and archival footage preserves that artistic story, while its travels through Philadelphia, Chicago, Lithuania and the Negev Desert broaden the frame beyond a standard music biography. Škarnulytė’s decade-long connection with Ben Shlomo also gives the project a direct personal foundation, particularly following his death in 2024.
The filmmaker ultimately describes the Arkestra’s music as a source of shared resilience. “In a time of displacement and division, their music reminds me that we can still build a shelter together, one that travels with us wherever we go,” she said.
What Happens Next?
Sounds of the Desert will enter the festival circuit with its Nov. 18 world premiere in Tallinn Black Nights’ Rebels With a Cause Competition. The screening will introduce audiences to Škarnulytė’s meditation on Ben Shlomo, Allen and the enduring musical and philosophical universe of the Sun Ra Arkestra.