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Documentary films about African Americans
On the Record
The haunting story of music executive Drew Dixon as she grapples with her decision to become one of the first women of color, in the wake of #MeToo, to come forward and publicly accuse hip-hop mogul R...
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United Skates
When America's last standing roller rinks are threatened with closure, a community of thousands battle in a racially charged environment to save an underground subculture.
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American Promise
In 1999, filmmakers Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson turned the camera on themselves and began filming their five-year-old son, Idris, and his best friend, Seun, as they started kindergarten at the...
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Portrait of Jason
Interview with Jason Holliday aka Aaron Payne. House-boy, would-be cabaret performer, and self-proclaimed hustler giving one man's gin-soaked, pill-popped view of what it was like to be coloured and g...
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Rize
A documentary film that highlights two street derived dance styles, Clowning and Krumping, that came out of the low income neighborhoods of L.A.. Director David LaChapelle interviews each dance crew a...
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Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project
Marion Stokes secretly recorded television 24 hours a day for 30 years from 1975 until her death in 2012. For Marion taping was a form of activism to seek the truth, and she believed that a comprehens...
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This Is the Life
In 1989, a collective of young hip hop artists gathered at a health food café in South Central Los Angeles. Their mandate? To reject gang culture and expand the musical boundaries of hip hop. DuVernay...
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The Amazing Nina Simone
The life, legacy and musical accomplishments of singer, musician, pianist, songwriter and Civil Rights activist, Nina Simone through interviews with over 50 of the subject’s friends, family, band memb...
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Cooked: Survival by Zip Code
Filmmaker Judith Helfand's searing investigation into the politics of “disaster” – by way of the deadly 1995 Chicago heat wave, in which 739 residents perished (mostly Black and living in the city’s p...
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Black Roots
Black Roots is the fourth feature-length film produced and directed by American independent filmmaker Lionel Rogosin. The film gathers a number of African American folk and blues musicians in a room,...
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