Black American Film in 2019

Our Year in Review continues...

by Kyndall Cunningham

It’s hard to summarize the past year in Black American film as smoothly as I could if I was doing so at the end of 2018. It wasn’t just that this year’s most notable critical darlings failed to strike an emotional chord with Black audiences in comparison to recent years. There was also a lot of intense, misguided discourse online about the year’s most highly anticipated studio films like Harriet and Queen & Slim. The best of this year's crop - Fast Color, Luce and Little Woods - flew under the radar due to limited distribution and marketing. Even Jordan Peele’s ambitious Get Out follow-up Us, which was a huge hit, left a lot of people confused about its meaning. Needless to say, it was an interesting way to cap off a decade that slowly gave a new class of Black artists the freedom to make the movies they wanted without catering to a white lens. 

**This is not a comprehensive selection of films**

The Internet’s disdain for last year’s Green Book spurred many conversations about white filmmakers’ ability to accurately portray Black people in their art. So it was interesting that, once again, this year’s most highly acclaimed and talked about Black movies out of prestige festivals were written and directed by white men: Trey Edward Shults’ Waves, Joe Talbot’s The Last Black Man in San Francisco and Craig Brewer’s Dolemite is My Name...

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Interview: Chinonye Chukwu on 'Clemency' and Alfre Woodard's astounding close-ups

by Murtada Elfadl

Anchored by a staggering performance from Alfre Woodard, Clemency is a powerful, precise and scorching indictment of capital punishment. We follow Woodard as prison warden Bernadine Williams, as she prepares to execute another inmate (Aldis Hodge), and deal with the toll, years of carrying out death row executions have taken on her life and relationships. 

Director Chinonye Chukwu won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival last January. She started working on the film after Troy Davis was executed in a Georgia State prison in 2011, when “the sounds of the hundreds of  thousands who protested against his execution kept ringing in my ears, and I couldn’t help but wonder: if so many of us struggled with what had happened to Mr. Davis, what about the people who actually had to carry out his execution? What if some of them were also grappling with having to kill this man?”

We recently met with Chukwu in New York. [This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.] 

Murtada Elfadl: Congratulations on the film. You start your movie with an execution, you end it with an execution. So it's these two bookends. That was a bold, strong choice. Can you talk about why you made that choice?

Chinonye Chukwu: I did that for a couple of reasons. One, to show Bernadine's arc and that she's not in the same place at the end as she was at the beginning of the story. Also, I wanted to get at the cyclicalness of the space of a prison that with or without her, this cycle of capital punishment is going to go on.

This film is very performance driven. Did you write it with Alfre Woodard in mind?

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Podcast: Everything you wanted to know about precursor awards week ... but were afraid to ask*

Nathaniel R and Murtada Elfadl welcome back NICK DAVIS! 

In this hour long conversation Nick, Murtada, and your TFE mastermind Nathaniel discuss the first gigantic week of precursor season. What hath the Globes and SAG wrought and who are we sad about (Alfre Woodard!) and who are we rooting for (Antonio Banderas) and the like. We're divided on Judy and Dark Waters and Robert DeNiro's The Irishman and we dunk a little on Richard Jewell and The Two Popes (sorry!). We also have words for NEON not finding a way to honor Clemency while pushing Parasite. Finally we try to suss out the impossible "Best Actor" race which is giving everyone predictive pause.  

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you? 

Precursor Madness

Murtada Gives Thanks

by Murtada Elfadl

This year I'm thankful for these 10 movies that made 2019 a great time at the movies.

Atlantics

For Mati Diop’s audacious jumping without a net storytelling.

Beanpole 

Because it has it all all. Murder, revenge, blackmail and most importantly twisted psychological warfare.

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Spirit Award nominations spread the wealth for 2019.

by Nathaniel R

Nominations for the 35th annual Independent Spirit Awards have been announced with the wealth really being spread. For example the 5 nominees for the top prize “Feature” only crossover with “Best Director” on a single film, the Safdie brothers Uncut Gem which co-led the nominations with 5 prizes though it’s yet to open in theaters. Tying that films lead for most nominations was The Lighthouse even though that black and white oddity did not score a nomination for Best Feature!

Interestingly enough, the just-opened indie Waves was (almost) entirely shut out even though it’s a Best Feature nominee at the often quite parallel Gotham Awards. On a similar note the acting nominations aren’t heavily dependent on Best Feature love, either. 

A complete list of nominations plus commentary after the jump...

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