Celebrate Black History
19 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 Fronza Woods (FANNIE’S FILM), Kathleen Collins (LOSING GROUND), Julie Dash (DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST), and Marlon Riggs (TONGUES UNTIED), as well as bracing contemporary voices like Garrett Bradley (AMERICA) and Jon-Sesrie Goff (AFTER SHERMAN). Their stories of revolution, resistance, creativity, community, and everyday endurance offer a multifaceted vision of Black American identity across generations.
-
1:47:36Episode 1
Portrait of Jason
Episode 1
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,...
-
55:59Episode 2
Remnants of the Watts Festival
Episode 2
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 ...
-
1:25:55Episode 3
Losing Ground
Episode 3
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...
-
1:41:17Episode 4
Say Amen, Somebody
Episode 4
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-...
-
1:26:32Episode 5
You Got to Move
Episode 5
Directed by Lucy Massie Phenix and Veronica Selver • 1985 • United States
Starring Myles Horton, May Justice, Bernice Johnson ReagonThis galvanizing documentary tells the story of individuals who have dared to change the world for the better, and of Tennessee’s world-renowned Highlander Folk Sc...
-
54:59Episode 6
Tongues Untied
Episode 6
Directed by Marlon Riggs • 1989 • United States
Marlon Riggs’s landmark documentary uses poetry, personal testimony, rap, and performance (featuring poet Essex Hemphill and others) to describe the homophobia and racism faced by Black gay men. The stories are often devastating: the man refused en...
-
1:17:28Episode 7
Paris Is Burning
Episode 7
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...
-
54:20Episode 8
A Place of Rage
Episode 8
Directed by Pratibha Parmar • 1991 • United States
Starring Angela Davis, Alice Walker, June JordanFeaturing enlightening interviews with Angela Davis, June Jordan, and Alice Walker, this essential documentary is an exuberant celebration of Black American women and their achievements. Within th...
-
1:52:26Episode 9
Daughters of the Dust
Episode 9
Directed by Julie Dash • 1991 • United States
Starring Cora Lee Day, Alva Rogers, Barbara O. JonesJulie Dash’s rapturous vision of black womanhood and vanishing ways of life in the turn-of-the-century South was the first film directed by an African American woman to receive a wide release. In 1...
-
1:29:23Episode 10
Alma’s Rainbow
Episode 10
Directed by Ayoka Chenzira • 1994 • United States
Starring Kim Weston-Moran, Victoria Gabrielle Platt, Mizan NunesA rediscovered treasure of independent cinema, this incisive comedic drama follows Rainbow Gold (Victoria Gabrielle Platt), a teenager coming of age in Brooklyn, as she looks to two...
-
1:25:03Episode 11
The Watermelon Woman
Episode 11
Directed by Cheryl Dunye • 1996 • United States
Starring Cheryl Dunye, Guinevere Turner, Valarie WalkerThe wry, incisive debut feature by Cheryl Dunye gave cinema something bracingly new and groundbreaking: a vibrant representation of Black lesbian identity by a Black lesbian filmmaker. Dunye s...
-
55:05Episode 12
The Final Insult
Episode 12
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...
-
45:52Episode 13
Baldwin’s Nigger
Episode 13
Directed by Horace Ové • 1968 • United Kingdom
Starring James Baldwin, Dick GregoryIn this riveting short documentary by pioneering Trinidadian-British filmmaker Horace Ové, James Baldwin and comedian-activist Dick Gregory speak to a group of radical West Indian students in London about everyth...
-
28:42Episode 14
Black Panthers
Episode 14
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...
-
29:32Episode 15
Paul Robeson: Tribute to an Artist
Episode 15
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."
-
14:49Episode 16
Fannie’s Film
Episode 16
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...
-
25:54Episode 17
Suzanne, Suzanne
Episode 17
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...
-
12:23Episode 18
To Be Free
Episode 18
Directed by Adepero Oduye • 2017 • United States
Starring Adepero OduyeIn this soul-stirring short featuring stunning cinematography from Bradford Young, PARIAH actor Adepero Oduye takes the stage as the great Nina Simone for an intimate, defiant performance.
-
America
Episode 19
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...