Celebrate Black History
18 Episodes
The story of Black Americans is, in many ways, the story of America itself. Though the African American experience has long been relegated to the margins of the big screen, a vital cinematic legacy endures thanks to the work of pioneers like William Greaves (NATIONTIME), Michelle Parkerson (. . . BUT THEN, SHE’S BETTY CARTER), Kathleen Collins (LOSING GROUND), Bill Duke (THE KILLING FLOOR), and Charles Burnett (THE FINAL INSULT), as well as bracing contemporary voices like Garrett Bradley (AMERICA) and Ephraim Asili (THE INHERITANCE). Their stories of revolution, resistance, creativity, community, and everyday endurance offer a multifaceted vision of Black American identity across generations.
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01:02Episode 1
Celebrate Black History Teaser
Episode 1
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1:47:36Episode 2
Portrait of Jason
Episode 2
Directed by Shirley Clarke • 1967 • United States
Starring Jason HollidayOn the night of December 2, 1966, Shirley Clarke and a tiny crew convened in her apartment at the Hotel Chelsea to make a film. For twelve straight hours, they filmed the one-and-only Jason Holliday as he spun tales, sang,...
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1:20:28Episode 3
Nationtime
Episode 3
Directed by William Greaves • 1972 • United States
Best known for his avant-garde meta-documentary SYMBIOPSYCHOTAXIPLASM, William Greaves was also the director of over one hundred documentary films, the majority focused on African American history, politics, and culture. NATIONTIME is a report o...
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1:01:36Episode 4
A Dream Is What You Wake Up From
Episode 4
Directed by Larry Bullard and Carolyn Johnson • 1978 • United States
Through a bold mix of narrative and documentary techniques, directors Carolyn Johnson and Larry Bullard explore the experiences of Black families in American society. Shuffling between day-to-day scenes of life at home, school,...
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55:50Episode 5
. . . But Then, She’s Betty Carter
Episode 5
Directed by Michelle Parkerson • 1980 • United States
This lively film is an unforgettable portrait of legendary jazz vocalist Betty Carter. Refusing to bow to commercial demands throughout her long career, Carter forged an alternative criteria for success—including founding her own recording co...
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55:59Episode 6
Remnants of the Watts Festival
Episode 6
Directed by Ulysses Jenkins • 1980 • United States
In 1972 and ’73, Ulysses Jenkins and the collective from Venice, California, known as Video Venice News documented the Watts Summer Festival—a major Black cultural event established in 1966 to commemorate the Watts Rebellion that jolted the Los ...
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1:25:55Episode 7
Losing Ground
Episode 7
Directed by Kathleen Collins • 1982 • United States
Starring Seret Scott, Bill Gunn, Duane JonesOne of the first feature films directed by an African American woman, Kathleen Collins’s LOSING GROUND tells the story of a marriage between two remarkable people, both at a crossroads in their lives...
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1:41:17Episode 8
Say Amen, Somebody
Episode 8
Directed by George T. Nierenberg • 1982 • United States
One of the most acclaimed music documentaries of all time is a joyous, funny, deeply emotional ode to gospel music and African American culture. Featuring the father of gospel, Thomas A. Dorsey; its matron, Willie Mae Ford Smith; and earth-...
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1:58:28Episode 9
The Killing Floor
Episode 9
Directed by Bill Duke • 1984 • United States
Starring Damien Leake, Alfre Woodard, Moses GunnOriginally broadcast on PBS’s “American Playhouse” in 1984, the stirring first feature from actor and filmmaker Bill Duke explores the little-known story of an African American migrant’s struggle to bui...
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1:17:28Episode 10
Paris Is Burning
Episode 10
Directed by Jennie Livingston • 1990 • United States
Starring Dorian Corey, Pepper LaBeija, Angie XtravaganzaWhere does voguing come from, and what, exactly, is throwing shade? This landmark documentary provides a vibrant snapshot of the 1980s through the eyes of New York City’s African America...
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55:05Episode 11
The Final Insult
Episode 11
Directed by Charles Burnett • 1997 • United States
Charles Burnett cannily blends documentary and dramatic action with this searing, savagely ironic tale of a bank employee reduced to living out of his car, in a character study that doubles as a compassionate portrait of Los Angeles’s homeless c...
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1:42:04Episode 12
The Inheritance
Episode 12
Directed by Ephraim Asili • 2020 • United States
After nearly a decade exploring different facets of the African diaspora—and his own place within it—Ephraim Asili makes his feature-length debut with this astonishing ensemble work set almost entirely within a West Philadelphia house inhabited by...
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28:42Episode 13
Black Panthers
Episode 13
Directed by Agnès Varda • 1970 • United States
Agnès Varda turns her camera on an Oakland demonstration against the imprisonment of activist and Black Panthers cofounder Huey P. Newton. In addition to evincing Varda’s fascination with her adopted surroundings and her empathy, this perceptive sho...
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29:32Episode 14
Paul Robeson: Tribute to an Artist
Episode 14
Directed by Saul J. Turell • 1979 • United States
Saul J. Turell's Academy Award-winning documentary short Paul Robeson: Tribute to an Artist, narrated by Sidney Poitier, traces his career through his activism and his socially charged performances of his signature song, "Ol' Man River."
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14:49Episode 15
Fannie’s Film
Episode 15
Directed by Fronza Woods • 1981 • United States
Starring Fannie DraytonA sixty-five-year-old cleaning woman for a professional dancers’ exercise studio performs her job while telling us in voice-over about her life, hopes, goals, and feelings. A challenge to mainstream media’s prevailing stereo...
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25:54Episode 16
Suzanne, Suzanne
Episode 16
Directed by Camille Billops and James Hatch • 1982 • United States
One of the many films that Camille Billops and James Hatch made centering on Billops’s family, SUZANNE, SUZANNE presents a devastating portrait of the artist’s niece, haunted by the abuse she suffered as a child and the passivity...
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We Demand
Episode 17
Directed by Kevin Jerome Everson and Claudrena N. Harold • 2016 • United States
Starring Ricky Goldman, Richard Warner, Ryan LeachWE DEMAND tells the story of the anti–Vietnam War movement from the perspective of James R. Roebuck, a Northern-born African American man who studied at the Universi...
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America
Episode 18
Directed by Garrett Bradley • 2019 • United States
Taking as its starting point the recently rediscovered Bert Williams feature LIME KILN CLUB FIELD DAY (1913)—the first known film to feature an all-Black cast—Garrett Bradley’s extraordinary new short imagines an entire lost lineage of African A...