Blu-ray Release: West Indies: The Fugitive Slaves of Liberty

By
Laurence
– June 15, 2026Find Others: Blu-ray, Movie, New Release, NewsGet More: , , ,

Blu-ray Release Date: June 9, 2026
Price: Blu-ray $31.99
Studio: Criterion Collection

Mauritanian French filmmaker Med Hondo (Soleil Ô) puts colonialism itself on trial in 1979’s West Indies: The Fugitive Slaves of Liberty, a one-of-a-kind musical spectacular that serves as a collective effort of unprecedented scale and ambition that proved a watershed event in African cinema.

Aboard an enormous mock slave ship, Hondo stages a series of imaginative reenactments and intricately choreographed dance numbers that trace the devastating effects of French imperialism across centuries of enslavement and injustice.

Beyond mere extravaganza, West Indies: The Fugitive Slaves of Liberty is a stirring call to Pan-African independence and a dazzling yet critical re-conception of an entire people’s history of oppression and rebellion.

Criterion’s Blu-ray edition contains the following features:

  • New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
  • New interview with African-cinema scholar Aboubakar Sanogo
  • Program featuring archival interviews with director Med Hondo
  • Excerpted archival interview with cinematographer François Catonné
  • Trailers
  • An essay by film programmer and critic Ashley Clark
Buy or Rent West Indies: The Fugitive Slaves of Liberty

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About Laurence

Founder and editor Laurence Lerman saw Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest when he was 13 years old and that’s all it took. He has been writing about film and video for more than a quarter of a century for magazines, anthologies, websites and most recently, Video Business magazine, where he served as the Reviews Editor for 15 years.