A documentary covering the life and work of Alabama’s most singular musician will have a national debut next year.

“Sun Ra: Do the Impossible,” will premiere on PBS Feb. 20 as part of its “American Masters” series. The film was directed by Christine Turner, who was nominated for an Academy Award for “The Barber of Little Rock,” a short documentary she made for The New Yorker in 2024.

The film has been in development since at least 2022, when the working title was “Sun Ra and the Roots of Afrofuturism.” The film, which is produced by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Stanley Nelson, has been described as a “kaleidoscopic portrait” of Sun Ra, who was born Herman Poole Blount on May 22, 1914 in Birmingham.

Despite growing up on a house a block over from the former Birmingham Terminal Station, Poole rewrote his own personal history, claiming that he was an angel and was from Saturn. He carried this cosmic obsession with him after leaving Alabama for good in 1945, changing his name to Sun Ra and establishing his band, the Arkestra, in Chicago, New York City and Philadelphia.

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Read more at CBS 42.