Black Film by Hannah

Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America is a 2018 film directed by Ronald Dalton Jr. The film contains antisemitic tropes, Holocaust denial, and claims of an international Jewish conspiracy. The film espouses antisemitic messaging and spreads misinformation.

Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes is a 2006 documentary film written, produced, and directed by Byron Hurt. The documentary explores the issues of masculinity, violence, homophobia and sexism in hip hop music and culture, through interviews with artists, academics and fans. Filmmaker Byron Hurt decided to focus on the men who make the music and…

How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (and Enjoy It) is an insightful and well detailed documentary about maverick filmmaker Melvin Van Peebles. This documentary film was directed and written by Joe Angio, and produced by Michael Solomon in 2006. Melvin Van Peebles was one of the first black directors to challenge the white…

Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song is a film that was directed, written, co-produced, and edited by Melvin Van Peebles. It was released April 23, 1971. Sweet Sweetback (Melvin Van Peebles) is a black orphan who, having grown up in a brothel, now works there as part of a sex show. When the police need a patsy…

Sorry to Bother You is a fantasy/comedy film directed by Boots Riley that was released January 20, 2018. In an alternate reality of present-day Oakland, Calif., telemarketer Cassius Green finds himself in a macabre universe after he discovers a magical key that leads to material glory. As Green’s career begins to take off, his friends…

Wattstax is a documentary of the Watts Summer Festival in 1972 at the Los Angeles Colesium. It was produced by Larry Shaw and directed by Mel Stuart. Organized by Stax Records, the festival is a gathering of musicians and entertainers from the black community, brought together to remember the Watts Riots from seven years prior.…

Dave Chappelle’s Block Party, also known as Block Party, is a 2005 American documentary film hosted and written by comedian Dave Chappelle. Chappelle loaded up a bus with residents of his Ohio hometown and took them to Brooklyn, N.Y. Once there, the travelers enjoyed a concert featuring Kanye West, the Fugees, Big Daddy Kane and…

Pumzi is an African and science fiction film by Wanuri Kahiu. It was released in 2009. This film was really short and I can tell you my thought about it in one sentence. Pumzi is a wonderful depiction of self sacrifice sustaining life. Her boss did not want her to look further into what she…

The Malcolm X movie was directed, written, and produced by Spike Lee. It was released November 18, 1992. The movie is a tribute to the controversial black activist and leader of the struggle for black liberation, Malcolm Little, later Malik el-Shabazz. He hit bottom during his imprisonment in the ’50s, he became a Black Muslim…

In 1998, black filmmaker Melvin Van Peebles cast a raw, unapologetically personal eye on the history of African-American screen imagery in “Classified X.” This film examines the treatment of black characters through the history of American cinema.  Before I get into my thoughts on the film, I want to say that Peebles did an amazing…

In 1990 Wendell B Harris Jr. created Chameleon Street. Harris himself stars as the main character, William Douglas Street Jr., a real life con man. Harris’s film shapes its subject’s own chameleonic transformations of Street.  After watching this film I have several thoughts about it. I feel that this film is very relatable to the…