Nosferasta: First Bite (2021) dir. Bayley Sweitzer, Adam Khalil

In the opening minutes of Nosferasta: First Bite, a slack-jawed Christopher Columbus dons blackface while orange sargassum roils on the surf off the Caribbean coast. The film hurtles back and forth between this 1492 beachhead and pandemic-era New York City, where Oba—a Rastafarian vampire—seeks legal counsel to renew his green card and undertakes the requisite literacy lessons. His tutor’s furtive looks to the camera evince a strain of hyperreality that runs through the film, which folds documentary and unscripted footage into its supernatural narrative, modular synthesizers thrumming on the soundtrack. Nosferasta imagines the moment of colonial encounter as an elaborate handshake between a castaway African and an Arawak native, with Columbus and his man-servant looking on from a distance. At the Museum of Natural History, a diorama depicts a similar scene as affably mercantile, both parties approaching each other with salable objects in open hands. The production might have raided the museum for props and wardrobe—Chinese parasols and Inuit snow goggles are both at the pale conquistador’s disposal. Gradually, the pace increases to a delirium of cross-talk and pot smoke. Oba, as community ambassador, presses the flesh, flashing gold teeth in place of fangs.