The Sundance Film Festival returns January 19 through 29 with a slate of independent features from filmmakers worldwide. The 2023 festival features selections picked from a record-breaking 4,061 submissions. The chosen few include documentaries and dramas from Black creators, examining figures, stories, and slices of life that speak to the unique experiences of members of the Black diaspora. The films will be on view in person in Park City, Salt Lake City, and the Sundance Resort starting on Jan 19, with a selection of films available online across the country from January 24 through the 29th.
From documentaries about legendary culture definers like Little Richard, and Nikki Giovanni, to dramas centering on generational trauma and healing, immigrant experiences, and twists of supernatural horror, the robust offerings from Black directors, producers, and stars are sure to shape the box office and awards noms of 2023.
Take a look at a few of the selections from Black creators highlighted at the festival below:
Young. Wild. Free. Starring Algee Smith, Sanaa Lathan, Sierra Capri, and Mike Epps, this one finds High school senior Brandon drowning in responsibilities when his world is turned upside down…after being robbed at gunpoint by the girl of his dreams.
All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt
From director and screenwriter Raven Jackson and produced by Barry Jenkins, this decades-spanning exploration of a woman’s life in Mississippi is an ode to the generations of people, places, and ineffable moments that shape us. Starring Moses Ingram.
Little Richard: I Am Everything This documentary celebrates the life and legacy of Little Richard, revealing the Black queer origins of rock ’n’ roll and finally exploding the whitewashed canon of American pop music. Through archival and performance footage, the revolutionary icon’s life unfurls onscreen – including all of its switchbacks and contradictions.
Talk To Me This supernatural thriller sees a group of friends discovering how to conjure spirits using an ancient embalmed hand. With the power to communicate with the other side in their grasp, they become hooked on the new thrill…until one of them goes too far and opens the door to the spirit world
Where can a superhero story that has lost its superhero go? Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (in theaters Friday) ultimately finds a new path forward, though director Ryan Coogler‘s grand, somber requiem makes it clear in nearly every scene that the late Chadwick Boseman is irreplaceable, both on and off screen.
This is a movie very much in mourning for the man it lost — as a star, a colleague, and a friend — which seems like strange if not uncharted territory for a comic-book universe in which death is a Snap, and resurrection rarely less than another sequel or end-credits sequence away. The result still pounds with busy CG spectacle and, at just under three hours, more mythology than any non-Marvel head may strictly need. But it’s also contemplative, character-driven, and frequently lovely: a faithful genre player imbued with a rare visual richness and real, painful poignancy.
King T’Challa’s death from an unspecified illness takes place before the title card, leaving his sister Shuri (Letitia Wright), his mother Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett) and a kingdom bereft. Global villainy, though, allows little time for bereavement, and even less for story exposition; within minutes, an American recon mission for vibranium — the precious, indestructible metal for which Wakanda is the only known source — goes fatally awry somewhere deep in the Atlantic Ocean, confounding the U.S. government. The hordes that destroyed their ship and mesmerized the crew don’t seem like citizens of any country they’ve seen before: Their skin is tinged Avatar-blue, for one, and they appear to breathe easily underwater. Their leader, Namor (the brooding Mexican actor Tenoch Huerta), a formidable fighter with elfin ears and small, fluttering wings on his heels like a Greek god, turns out to have royal immortality in his blood, and intractable plans for Wakanda. As the ruler of an ancient deep-sea Mayan civilization called Talokan, he has his own people and resources to protect, and when he introduces himself to a still-grieving Ramonda and Shuri, he makes his terms clear: They can join him in defeating his land-bound foes, or be buried with them. There’s also a teenage girl, an Einstein-brained MIT student named Riri (Judas and the Black Messiah‘s Dominique Thorne), whose precocious inventions, among them an Iron Man-like suit, make her both a target and an asset (and inevitably, a place-marker for yet another lucrative fragment of IP; Thorne will star as Riri/Ironheart in a Disney+ series slated for 2023).
Fending off these new threats means bringing Riri on board and marshaling the forces of the Wakanda diaspora, including Danai Gurira ‘s ferociously loyal general Okoye, Winston Duke‘s towering warrior M’Baku, and Lupita Nyong’o ‘s retired spy Nakia, now living in self-imposed exile. Martin Freeman also returns as the Wakandans’ best American ally, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, with a vivid purple streak in her hair and an air of persistent Veep-y exasperation, drops in as the government honcho tasked with cleanup. (I May Destroy You‘s great Michaela Coel, alas, doesn’t get to do much with her own warrior bit.)
Coogler, who cowrote the script once again with Panther scribe Joe Robert Cole, sets up several anchoring set pieces, clangorous air-land-and-sea battles that travel from Boston bridges and Wakandan city centers to the ocean floor. Levity comes in a few brief but well-placed moments of release, little garnishes of comic relief — just watch Duke eat a carrot — that mitigate the heavy mantle of grief and the obligatory MCU business of saving the world, one franchise installment at a time. (The rules of engagement seem more arcane, or merely very flexible; it’s never completely clear what privileges various characters’ powers confer unless you knew them coming in.)
The most striking thing about the movie, though, may be what a matriarchy it is, both by nature and nurture: Without their king, Wakanda has become a queendom from the top down, overseen by Bassett’s regal, ageless Ramonda, the gorgeously daunting Gurira, and Wright, who rises to fill her dramatically expanded role with feline grace and vulnerability. Coogler also stacks his backline with talented women, including production designer Hannah Beachler and costumer Ruth E. Carter, who both won well-deserved Oscars for the first film.
Their shared vision of Afro-futurism feels lush and joyful and beautifully specific set against the usual white noise of Marvel fanfare, even (or almost especially) in darker moments, like the pristine rituals of a funeral scene. Wakanda is still clearly a Marvel property, with all the for-the-fans story beats and secondary characters its ever-expanding universe requires, but it also feels apart from any one that’s come before. And while a Black Panther without Boseman is undoubtedly nothing like the film’s creators or any of its cast wanted it to be, the movie they’ve made feels like something unusually elegant and profound at the multiplex; a little bit of forever carved out for the star who left too soon. Grade: B+
From such global icons as Whitney Houston to lesser-known civil rights activists like Lori Jackson, the network is leading the industry in spotlighting the stories of Black women
When the idea of making a biopic about Mahalia Jackson first came up, about half the members of Lifetime’s Original Movies group hadn’t heard of the gospel legend and civil rights leader — which, for that team, was a selling point.
“ We had been talking about women who have historically made impacts that no one talks about,” says head of movies Tanya Lopez of the group’s brainstorming sessions. It was programming manager Mekita Faiye who suggested Jackson, and though her pitch was met with unfamiliarity, it wasn’t dismissed. “Everyone loses when we don’t take the time to understand others’ unique experiences, especially when it’s due to economic, ethnic or even religious differences,” says Faiye, one of six people of color (including Lopez) on the 11-person LOM team. “Fortunately, Lifetime creates a culture of openness and compassion while making a concerted effort to value everyone’s voice in the room.”
So when Lopez had lunch with Robin Roberts (who has a production deal with the network) and the Good Morning America anchor mentioned Jackson as a subject of interest, the soil was already fertile for its latest biopic, Robin Roberts Presents: Mahalia, which stars Tony nominee Danielle Brooks and premiered April 3.
Mahalia is Lifetime’s third biopic of 2021, all of which focus on Black women (Salt-N-Pepa bowed Jan. 23, followed by Wendy Williams: The Movie a week later). In all, 22 of the network’s 68 biopics since 1993 have centered the lives of Black women. That’s nearly a third — far above the demographic’s 3.7 percent share of lead or co-lead characters among theatrically released films (according to a study released in March by the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media and USC, which examined the 100 highest-grossing films each year from 2009 to 2019). In an era in which inclusion can be received as a begrudging mandate, LOM’s development process reveals a blueprint for a more organic path.
To hear Lopez tell it, Lifetime has come by its track record somewhat incidentally. “Our biggest victories are telling stories of women and things that people don’t know about,” she says of choosing subjects. And since Black history has long been minimized or excluded from textbooks and news involving Black communities left off the front page, those stories provide a rich vein for Lifetime to mine, from 1999’s Dangerous Evidence — the story of efforts by civil rights activist Lori Jackson (Lynn Whitfield) to exonerate a Black Marine falsely convicted of rape — to last year’s The Clark Sisters: First Ladies of Gospel.
While Lifetime has given the biopic treatment to plenty of universal household names, like Whitney Houston, Simone Biles and Meghan Markle, The Clark Sisters is an example of a decision to commit resources to figures beloved within the Black community but not as well known outside it. Once again, it was a Black executive, LOM manager Mychael Chinn, who surfaced the name. And, once again, though non-Black teammates didn’t recognize the gospel group, they didn’t discard the idea as “niche.”
“When we all did our due diligence, we were almost ashamed we didn’t know who the Clark Sisters were, and that has to do with everybody’s education,” Lopez says. “It’s definitely a cultural and racial divide.”
Lifetime’s forays into bridging that divide haven’t hurt its critical or commercial prospects. The network’s 2006 Fantasia Barrino biopic is its second-highest-rated original film of all time, behind 2004’s biopic of Jessica Savitch and just ahead of the network’s 2012 Steel Magnolias remake, starring Queen Latifah and Phylicia Rashad alongside Alfre Woodard, who earned Emmy and SAG nods for her performance. L opez says the themes in these projects — the female friendship dynamics in Salt-N-Pepa, the heroism of a school employee who talks down a would-be shooter in 2018’s Faith Under Fire (starring Toni Braxton) — are compelling to any female audience. “These are the stories we’re interested in telling, no matter the background,” she says, turning again to Mahalia Jackson. “She’s a huge name in the civil rights movement, but a certain portion of our audience only knows of Martin Luther King, because he’s the one the white media and history focused on. So when we look at iconic figures, what’s the story of the woman standing next to the person the light is shining on?
A man goes to therapy to fix his issues but he ends up getting addicted to the treatment. .Starring: Jay Prodigy, Cristiana Alvarez & Shahd Elkhier Written & Directed by: Semmi A Cole Director of Photography: Michael Jarrett
“Judas and the Black Messiah” opened on HBO Max last weekend and I’m not gonna bother with a formal review of the film because you can find those anywhere, and because “Judas” is already on its way to amassing a stockpile of award show trophies that a dragon could comfortably rest upon. Most of those trophies, including an Oscar, are gonna be handed out because of this man, Daniel Kaluuya:
You might remember Kaluuya from his breakout role in Jordan Peele’s “Get Out.” Kaluuya got nominated for Best Actor for “Get Out,” and holy s—t did he deserve it. I remember I spent the entirety of that movie terrified for poor Chris. I also remember that when Kaluuya didn’t win Best Actor that year (fellow Brit Gary Oldman got it for playing Winston Churchill), it was okay because anyone who saw Kaluuya’s performance knew he’d be nominated for many, many other roles afterward. Three years later, after sharing the bill for “Widows” and for “Black Panther,” he’s delivered a performance in “Judas and the Black Messiah” that fulfills all of that promise, and far beyond. I saw the trailer for “Judas,” featuring Kaluuya spewing hellfire and brimstone as civil rights legend Fred Hampton, and I was like, “Oh yeah, I’m watching that. He’s gonna kick ass.”
I did and he did. Kaluuya is gonna be back at the Oscars this year, and he’s gonna win that s—t this time around. Because “Judas and the Black Messiah” proves that he’s the best goddamn actor on Earth right now.
Now, Warner Bros. submitted Kaluuya in the supporting actor category for “Judas,” because his “Get Out” co-star LaKeith Stanfield plays the spiritual lead (and is REALLY good) as FBI informant William O’Neal. But “Judas” belongs to Kaluuya’s Fred Hampton.
Hampton was the chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panthers. His name and his story were completely unfamiliar to me before I started watching Judas. This is because I’m ignorant, and because American schools were far too stingy back in my childhood, and remain so, about allowing nonwhite material into the curriculum. Hampton’s story should be taught. This movie should be taught. And perhaps it will be, because the force of Kaluuya’s performance all but demands it.
You can’t take your eyes off of Daniel Kaluuya. Even in the tender scenes Kaluuya shares with love interest Dominique Fishback, his presence still bleeds off the screen. If Kaluuya spent the rest of his life in character AS Fred Hampton, I would vote him for president. I would pay him money to come to my town, give a speech as Fred and get everyone so fired up they could run through a god damn brick wall. I would like an expanded Fred Hampton Cinematic Universe.
In fact, that’s not far enough. I would like Daniel Kaluuya to be in EVERY movie now. Usually, when you go to an actor’s IMDb page, they have 900 future projects in development, half of which make you wince in anticipation. Kaluuya has just one: a Netflix adaptation of the science fiction novel “The Upper World.” I do not trust Netflix to make this show good — Netflix is like if you went to a brick-and-mortar Blockbuster store and everything in it sucked — but I do trust Kaluuya to play the hell out of his character.
He’s also due to star in “Black Panther 2,” and if they choose to make W’Kabi the next Black Panther (Marvel has already said that they will not recast the late Chadwick Boseman’s T’Challa, but will find another character to assume the mantle of the Black Panther; now you know as much as the rest of us do about it), you won’t see me complain. This world requires a massive Kaluuya stimulus. Democrats should send every household at least 2,000 Kaluuyas, and not a piddly-s—t 1,400. Hollywood should spin off his tinyass “Sicario” character and make good movies with that character instead of making garbage like “Sicario 2,” which looked like it was produced by Vince McMahon. Make Kaluuya the next Bond. Give him a standalone “Star Wars” franchise that Kathleen Kennedy is barred from ruining. Actually, you know what? F—k “Star Wars.” Daniel Kaluuya is too good for “Star Wars.” Keep Kaluuya away from “Star Wars” and make him Ahab instead. Make him Ellison’s “Invisible Man.” Make him Holden Caulfield. Make him Dracula. Make him “JAWS.”
Better yet, make Daniel Kaluuya a character no one has seen or heard of before. This man is part of a breakout mainstream movement in Black cinema that’s the newest, best thing coming out of Hollywood right now. Kaluuya is proof that the movement is already producing more exciting work than the incessant IP-humping that constitutes the bulk of studio products.
This man is not only talented, but he’s also got the juice to keep pushing Hollywood out of its deadened comfort zone. F—k, I’d pay to watch Daniel Kaluuya read the transcript of an investment firm’s Zoom call. I don’t care. Great actors elevate bad material and consecrate great material. That’s what Daniel Kaluuya can do. There’s no stopping him. There’s no need to try. Give him every Oscar, and then get out of his way.
It will never not be sadly funny that, of course, America designated its shortest month to be the one honoring Black History This year, however, it’s less sadly funny than just plain sad.
Ever since the uprisings last summer, set off by the killing of George Floyd at the hands of police, structural racism has been part of the national discourse like never before. Some folks are just waking up to its insidious, rampant nature; others feel alternately vindicated by this new awareness and betrayed by its tardiness; and others still have merely doubled down on denying that the problem even exists. In the months since the George Floyd protests led President Trump to call Black Lives Matter “toxic propaganda,” Black voters came out in full force to elect a new president . . . only to see a coalition of white supremacists attempt to reverse that outcome by force. That they failed is less a cause for celebration than a reason to reflect on why they attempted their coup in the first place.
In any case, it is at a somber, introspective moment in American history that the country finds itself welcoming Black History Month this year. To make the month a bit more nourishing for everyone stuck at home, Fast Company has scoured the streaming services for a bounty of entertaining and often enlightening films and TV shows that showcase either Black stories or the talents of Black creators. Have a look below at 91 movies and TV series to stream during this poignant Black History Month. Fictional movies and shows rooted in history Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom on Netflix Da Five Bloods on Netflix Mudbound on Netflix Roots on HBO Max
Documentaries that tell Black stories Time on Amazon Prime I Am Not Your Negro on Netflix What Happened, Miss Simone? on Netflix Becoming, on Netflix, takes Michelle Obama’s bestselling memoir from page to screen. LA 92 on Netflix and Burn Motherf**ker, Burn! on Amazon Prime both document the 1992 uprisings in Los Angeles following the Rodney King verdict that year. The Last Dance on Netflix Whitney: Can I Be Me on Amazon Prime Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child on Amazon Prime Mr. Dynamite: The Rise and Fall of James Brown on Amazon Prime Whose Streets, on Netflix, documents the efforts of Black Lives Matter activists to bring national attention to the police killing of unarmed Black teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. The Trials of Muhammad Ali on Amazon Prime Anita: Speaking Truth to Power on Amazon Prime All In: The Fight for Democracy, on Amazon Prime, chronicles Stacey Abrams’s fight against voter suppression in her native Georgia, a fight that culminated in Georgia going blue in the 2020 election. The United States vs. Billie Holiday on Hulu starting February 26 Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami on Hulu Time: The Kalief Browder Story on Netflix Being Serena on HBO Max Original movies and series from Black creators I May Destroy You, on HBO Max, is a belated breakthrough for creator/star Michaela Coel, who is also behind the underrated gem Chewing Gum, which is also coming to HBO Max on February 1. Moonlight on Netflix His House on Netflix Soul Food on Amazon Chi-Raq on Amazon Selah and the Spades on Amazon Middle of Nowhere, on Netflix as of February 11, is Ava DuVernay’s 2012 film about a woman dropping out of medical school to help her incarcerated husband. Sylvie’s Love on Amazon Sorry to Bother You on Hulu is a constantly surprising surrealist critique of capitalism, from Boots Riley in his directorial debut. Eve’s Bayou on Hulu If Beale Street Could Talk on Hulu Clemency on Hulu Insecure on HBO Max Lovecraft Country on HBO Max The Book of Eli on HBO Max Us on HBO Max Drumline on HBO Max Atlanta on Hulu The Forty Year-Old Version on Netflix Dear White People on Netflix Topical standup and sketch comedy Chris Rock: Total Blackout: The Tamborine Extended Cut on Netflix Classic sitcoms, old and new Sister, Sister on Netflix Watchmen, on HBO Max, is a cultural powerhouse that audaciously grounds the classic graphic novel in a new, racially relevant context. It also provided a prescient history lesson on the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre nine months before a planned Trump rally brought it to the forefront of the national conversation. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks on HBO Max Biopics based on Black stories Fruitvale Station on Netflix When They See Us, on Netflix, is Ava DuVernay’s powerful, comprehensive 2019 miniseries about the Central Park 5. Self-Made: Madam CJ Walker on Netflix Loving, on Netflix, is an Oscar-nominated dramatization of the 1967 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Loving v. Virginia, that invalidated state laws forbidding interracial marriage. Dolemite Is My Name on Netflix Hard Lessons on Netflix Detroit on Hulu Nina on Hulu Judas and the Black Messiah on HBO Max, due on February 12, tells the incredible true story of Fred Hampton (played by Get Out star Daniel Kaluuya), a Black Panther leader murdered by police, and the informant (played by Lakeith Stanfield) who helped them do it. Just Mercy on HBO Max The Hurricane on HBO Max Malcolm X on HBO Max Barry, on Netflix, is not HBO’s thespian hitman series but rather a film about the adventures of a collegiate Barack Obama. Harriet on HBO Max Get On Up on HBO Max Ray on HBO Max Confirmation on HBO Max Bessie on HBO Max
Other movies and shows that tell Black stories The Princess and the Frog, on Netflix, marks the introduction of Disney’s first-ever Black princess. Pose, on Netflix, is the acclaimed series about ballroom culture in the 1980s, with a cast that actually reflects the Black trans originators who created it, while Legendary, on HBO Max, is a reality competition series that reveals how the culture flourishes to this day. American Son on Netflix Coming to America, on Amazon Prime, not to be confused with the sequel, Coming 2 America, due on Prime in March. Fast Color on Amazon Prime Kevin Hart’s Guide to Black History on Netflix Bookmarks: Celebrating Black Voices on Netflix (Common) The Read with Kid Fury and Crissle on Amazon Prime Black Earth Rising on Netflix is a U.K.-set series about the prosecution of an African militia leader in the International Criminal Court. It’s another acting showcase for Michaela Coel, which originally arrived in between the two series she created herself. Black Boy Joy on HBO Max Purple Rain on HBO Max The Princess and the Frog, on Netflix, marks the introduction of Disney’s first-ever Black princess.
SDM MAGAZINE 
You must be logged in to post a comment.