Veryl Oakland's photographs appear throughout the PBS American Masters documentary, Sun Ra: Do the Impossible, directed by Christine Turner and executive produced by Stanley Nelson. Images from Berkeley, New York, and Germantown now reach audiences decades after they were captured—moments finding new life on screen.
"Sun Ra: Do the Impossible" Documentary
Several years back, we met with the team working on a documentary about Sun Ra and shared Oakland's photographs with them, in hopes some might help work for the overall story they were telling. In moments like that, there's no way to know which images will make the cut — so it's always a small thrill to discover which ones did.
The completed film, Sun Ra: Do the Impossible, comes from director Christine Turner and Firelight Films, with Stanley Nelson among its executive producers, and premiered at the Tribeca Festival before joining the PBS American Masters catalog. It's a rich, unhurried portrait of Ra's life — built from previously unreleased recordings and archival material, and interviews spanning surviving Arkestra members to scholars and poets who've spent careers thinking about what Ra actually meant, and his impact on culture.
What comes through is just how much ground one life covered. It’s pretty remarkable. From his beginnings in Birmingham, Alabama, through his formative years in Chicago and New York, to the Afrofuturist philosophy he built out by the time he landed in Germantown, PA – the film treats Ra's cosmology and showmanship as seriously as his music. We know him as a musician, but he’s also a poet, philosopher, and professor — and the documentary doesn't flatten any of it into novelty.
We were honored to have several of Oakland's photographs and contact sheets included in the film — images spanning his time with Ra in Berkeley, New York City, and his home in Germantown. The shots that made it into the final film are included here.
