In honour of Black History Month, we have decided to curate a collection of films that celebrate Black filmmakers and Black narratives. These films highlight the the immense talent and unmatched output of leading black creatives. From writers and directors shaping contemporary cinema, to musicians and artists that have left an indelible impact on culture at-large, these films emphasize the boundless and enduring impact that Black folks have made throughout the world.
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SAINT OMER (2022)
The narrative debut of celebrated French filmmaker Alice Diop, SAINT OMER takes the court procedural format and re-shapes it into a milieu where race, gender, and justice collide. Deeply humanistic, sympathetic, and unflinchingly tragic, the film tells the story of Laurence Coly, a Senegalese immigrant who is on trial for the murder of her infant daughter in the titular town of Saint Omer, France. Rama, a young writer and soon-to-be mother, travels to Saint Omer to witness the trial, with the intention of adapting Laurence’s narrative into a novel. As the trial unfolds, and Rama looks on from the court’s gallery, the young writer must confront her own misgivings of motherhood, and navigate the painful intersection and dissonance of her own identity and that of Laurence.
SAINT OMER won the Silver Lion, the Luigi De Laurentiis Award for Best Debut Film, and the Edipo Re Award at the 2022 Venice Film Festival, and was France’s official entry for Best International Film at the 2023 Academy Awards. Alice Diop has also won the Encounters Award at the 2021 Berlin International Film Festival and the Best Documentary Award at the 2023 Lumiere Awards for her 2021 film, WE.
I CALLED HIM MORGAN (2016)
“Lee Morgan was the baddest trumpet player out there. Badder than Diz, badder than me.” - Miles Davis
Before he was murdered at the age of 31, Lee Morgan became one of the most influential jazz players in the history of the genre. Né Edward Lee Morgan, he played with icons Dizzy Gillespie and John Coltrane all before he turned 20, and went on to play with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. He recorded with the seminal jazz label Blue Note Records, and even broke into Billboard’s Hot 100 with his hit album ‘The Sidewinder’. I CALLED HIM MORGAN traces the rise of its namesake, and puts on display his prodigious talent and the unprecedented contributions he made to Jazz and the American culture and politics of the 20th century. I CALLED HIM MORGAN was nominated for Outstanding Documentary at the 2018 NAACP Image Awards and was nominated for Best Documentary in the 2017 IndieWire Critic’s Poll.
Boom For Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat (2017)
Jean-Michel Basquiat was a giant of New York City’s Neo-Expressionism art movement of the 1970s and 1980s. He was one of the youngest artists to ever exhibit works in the Whitney Biennale at the renowned Whitney Museum of American Art. His works are amongst the most highly valued in the world. Sara Driver’s 2017 documentary BOOM FOR REAL: THE LATE TEENAGE YEARS OF JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT explores the early years of Basquiat’s career, diving into the cultural landscape of 1970s NYC that shaped him, and his rise from infamous graffiti artist to one of the most celebrated painters and visual creators of all time. Glen Kenny of The New York Times called the film “an unequivocal cause for celebration” and a “proper and enthralling tribute” to Basquiat and his legacy. BOOM FOR REAL: THE LATE TEENAGE YEARS OF JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT premiered at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival.
MUSCLE SHOALS (2013)
Drawing its name from the location of its primary subject, FAME Studios, MUSCLE SHOALS unpacks the history and lasting impact that the American recording studio has had on popular music. Founded in the late 1950’s in Muscle Shoals, Alabama during the Jim Crow era, FAME Studios quickly became a hotbed for creativity amongst some of the most celebrated Black musicians in history. Aretha Franklin, Etta James, Wilson Pickett, Alicia Keys, Otis Redding, and Little Richard have all recorded at the notorious studio, which is also where numerous smash hits such as ‘Mustang Sally’ by Wilson Pickett, ‘When a Man Loves a Woman’ by Percy Sledge, ‘I’ll Take You There’ by the Staples Singers, and ‘Sitting in Limbo’ by reggae great Jimmy Cliff, were recorded. This vibrant and heartfelt documentary sheds light on how one studio became a safe-haven from the virulent racism of the 1960s American south, and helped create some of the greatest music of the 20th century. MUSCLE SHOALS features original interviews with many of the aforementioned legends of American music, and won the Audience Award at the 2013 Hot Docs International Documentary Festival.
FIRE MUSIC (2019)
When the Free Jazz movement began in the late 1950’s, it was derided and denigrated by critics, musicians and listeners. Despite this, the progenitors of Free Jazz, including John Coltrane, Sun Ra, Ornette Coleman and Pharoah Sanders, pushed on, and continued to create a sound that eschewed traditional constructs of melody, rhythm and composition. When nightclubs wouldn’t book them, these artists played in unconventional and ad-hoc performance spaces. When labels wouldn’t publish their music, they self-released it. FIRE MUSIC by Tom Surgal focuses its lens on the history of the Free Jazz movement and its inventors, who were once outcasts and are now considered some of the greatest musical minds of their generation. FIRE MUSIC premiered at the 2018 New York Film Festival, and was referred to as “heaven on earth” by The New York Times and is said to have “set a new benchmark” for music documentaries by Rolling Stone.
HALE COUNTY THIS MORNING, THIS EVENING (2018)
Hale County, the eponymous Alabama county at the centre of writer-director Ramell Ross’ debut feature film, was documented by Walker Evans and James Agee in their 1941 book Let us now Praise of Famous Men, which focused on the area’s economically depressed white share-croppers, and resulted in a tectonic shift in the way in which people, places and history were documented in America. In contrast, HALE COUNTY THIS MORNING, THIS EVENING focuses its gaze on the county’s now predominantly Black population, zeroing in on the experiences of Quincy Bryant and Daniel Collins. Shot over the course of five years, the film captures the divergent experiences of these two young Black men, while delivering a poignant and incisive portrait Hale County. At once poetic and literal, sober and humanistic, Ross’ film balances the camera squarely between the roles of a fly-on-the-wall and a narrative agent. HALE COUNTY THIS MORNING, THIS EVENING won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2018 Sundance film Festival and the 2020 Documentary Peabody Award, and was nominated for Best Documentary at the 2019 Film Independent Spirit Awards and the 2019 Academy Awards.
FWL’s #BLACKHISTORYMONTH COLLECTION
Find out where to watch all of the titles in our #BlackHistoryMonth Collection
About Films We Like
Founded by award-winning documentary filmmaker Ron Mann (Grass, Comic Book Confidential, Carmine Street Guitars) Films We Like is a boutique distributor of documentary, independent, and international films in Canada. Recent releases include Saint Omer, Godland, Academy Award nominee EO and the Academy Award winning film Drive My Car by Ryusuke Hamaguchi.