In a stylised reconstruction filmed in black and white, students from the University of Virginia greet the arrival of the band Sly and the Family Stone at Charlottesville airport in 1973. This is the theme of “How Can I Ever Be Late”, a kind of music video of the band in the form of a witty short film co-directed by writer and African-American historian Claudrena Harold and filmmaker Kevin Jerome Everson. The latter is the prolific and unpredictable author of around 150 films (varying in length from eight hours to just one minute), in addition to a significant volume of installations, painting, sculpture and photography that has been exhibited in institutions such as the Centre Pompidou and the MOMA. Like most of Everson’s films, “How Can I Ever Be Late” explores themes associated with the Afro-American community and shares a concern for historical context and a visual style that foregrounds the materiality of film and owes as much to the traditional documentary as to the more formalist avantgarde cinema which rejects naturalism in favour of staged situations and exaggerated gestures. (MD)