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Thelonious “Monk” Ellison’s writing career has stalled because his work isn’t deemed “Black enough.” Monk, a writer and English professor, writes a satirical novel under a pseudonym, aiming to expose the publishing world’s hypocrisies. The book’s immediate success forces him to get deeper enmeshed in his assumed identity and challenges his closely-held worldviews.
Lyfe Benjamin fits the statistics that a good number of black men fall under in this country today; he’s young, uneducated black and lives a reckless life. Statistics say he will be incarcerated or dead by the age of twenty-five.
Explores the remarkable life and career of Donyale Luna, one of the first Black supermodels who graced the covers of both Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar in Europe.
One of sport’s first and most influential megastars, beloved baseball icon and 5-time World Series champion Reggie Jackson contemplates his legacy as a trailblazing Black athlete fighting for dignity, respect, and a seat at the table in this intimate and revealing documentary exploring his life and barrier-busting career.
Having taken control of a maximum security prison, a criminal mastermind faces off against a retired Black Ops agent who had been visiting his incarcerated son.
Widely regarded as one of the greatest basketball players of all time, Kobe Bryant spent his entire 20-year career with the Los Angeles Lakers. Earning his nickname, the “Black Mamba” was a predator on the court, shredding his opponents’ defenses, and scoring up to 81 points in a single game. He will forever be remembered as one of the greatest on and off the court.
Drafted to the NBA out of high school when he was only 19 years old, two time NBA Champion JR Smith has a new focus. He’s getting a college education and pursuing a new athletic passion at the nation’s largest historically black university – North Carolina A&T.
The Martins family are optimistic dreamers, quietly leading their lives in the margins of a major Brazilian city following the disappointing inauguration of a far-right extremist president. A lower-middle-class Black family, they feel the strain of their new reality as the political dust settles. Tércia, the mother, reinterprets her world after an unexpected encounter leaves her wondering if she’s cursed. Her husband, Wellington, puts all of his hopes into the soccer career of their son, Deivinho, who reluctantly follows his father’s ambitions despite secretly aspiring to study astrophysics and colonize Mars. Meanwhile, their older daughter, Eunice, falls in love with a free-spirited young woman and ponders whether it’s time to leave home.
This career spanning documentary on heavy metal legend Ronnie James Dio delves deep into his incredible rise from 50’s doo-wop crooner, to his early classic rock days in Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow, to replacing the iconic lead singer Ozzy Osborne in Black Sabbath, to finally cement his legend with DIO. Ronnie’s biography is completely unique to the tired sex, drugs and rock and roll cliches. The film is about perseverance, dreams and the power to believe in yourself.
At the end of WWII, a black marketeer and a nightclub singer put together a ragtag bunch of misfits to carry out an impossible heist: to steal Mussolini’s treasure right from his headquarters.
Ash Mayfair’s reworking of her acclaimed film THE THIRD WIFE into a silent, black and white film, creating a completely different cinematic experience. In late 19th century Vietnam, fourteen-year-old May becomes the third wife to a wealthy landowner. She quickly learns that she can gain status and security if she gives birth to a male child, but her burgeoning attraction to Xuan, the second wife, puts her fragile standing in jeopardy. As May observes the unfolding tragedy of forbidden love and its devastating consequences, she must make a choice, to either carry on in silence, or forge a path towards personal freedom.
A first-time captain leads a convoy of allied ships carrying thousands of soldiers across the treacherous waters of the “Black Pit” to the front lines of WW2. With no air cover protection for 5 days, the captain and his convoy must battle the surrounding enemy Nazi U-boats in order to give the allies a chance to win the war.
Dalia and her two young sisters grow up in a pagan apocalyptic cult led by an ancient Baltic goddess of death and reincarnation. On the night of an important cult ritual, a police raid rescues Dalia as cult members flee with her two sisters. Years later, as the guilt eats away at her, Dalia finds a potential link to the cult through a prominent and despised black metal artist sequestered in the woods. Dalia journeys to find her sisters but her quest for the truth becomes a descent into Hell.
A wilfully offensive band, The Mentors gained infamy for performing in black executioner hoods and spewing cartoonishly racist, homophobic and misogynistic lyrics in the 1980s and ‘90s—but was their use of shock meant to propagate hate or confront it?
The story behind a critical moment in American history, spawning one of most iconic images of protest from the past century. At the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, the world watched as two American runners, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, took the stage as the U.S. national anthem played, raising their fists in a symbol of black struggle and solidarity.
Beautiful, ruthlessly ambitious, intelligent, and successful businesswoman Catherine Black lives a life of luxury in an architectural dream house in Malibu with exclusive designer fashions, fast cars, and exquisite jewelry. She has no need for a man except to satisfy her natural serial killer instinct, literally. When Tyler, a petty thief, responds to her online roommate ad, he thinks he’s struck gold. But he has no idea that after a night of partying and passion, he is really just on her menu to be her next victim… until real romance gets in the way.
Jenny (Lynn Chen, Saving Face, Go Back To China), a Los Angeles mom, leaves her family for a blogger convention in Vegas, and accidentally chooses “pool” on her rideshare app, placing her in a car full of strangers including struggling activist Kara (Dreama Walker, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Gran Torino), heartbroken talent agent Sean (Jonathan Lipnicki, The Resident, Jerry Maguire) on a quest to find Dawn (Taryn Manning, Orange is the New Black, Hustle and Flow), and their hipster/anarchist/shaman driver, Marc (Jordan Carlos, First Wives Club, Broad City). Personalities clash, vulnerabilities unwind, and bonds form as they each find their own personal Paradise. Full of humor, heart, pathos and a psilocybin drug trip in Death Valley, Jentis’ script is a relatable millennial road trip rom-com perfect for summer.
Jimmy carries a leather, black doctor’s bag around with him containing the rope he plans to hang himself with. He returns home to the fictional town of Ballylough to the cold austere beauty of West Cavan to seek salvation for sins committed in the past before saying goodbye.
1945. A U.S. military cargo plane loses control and violently crashes behind enemy lines in the middle of the German black forest. Major Johnson sends a squad of his bravest soldiers on a rescue mission to retrieve the top-secret material the plane was carrying, led by Sergeants Brewer and Walsh. They soon discover hanged Nazi soldiers and other dead bodies bearing ancient, magical symbols. Suddenly their compasses fail, their perceptions twist and straying from the group leads to profound horrors as they are attacked by a powerful, supernatural force.
Steve Mackleson is a dangerous prisoner, incarcerated for double murder in a maximum security prison. We follow, as he navigates his struggle against redemption the system and his inner turmoil, when a young black gang member becomes his unlikely new cell mate and a daughter he has never met, finally requests to meet her estranged father, face to face.
Following the hugely successful Agatha Christie-inspired whodunnits Murder on the Blackpool Express and Death on the Tyne, unlikely super-sleuths Johnny Vegas and Sian Gibson return with a killer group of comedy greats in the latest Draper’s Tours outing, once again written by Jason Cook. Terry (Vegas) and Gemma (Gibson) are forced to take refuge in a sinister and dilapidated caravan park after their coach breaks down. During the unplanned stay, visitors and residents begin to be bumped off one by one under grizzly circumstances. The all-star cast includes Sally Lindsay, Phil Davis, Mike Wozniak, Joanna Page, Jason Donovan and Annette Crosbie.
The Old Dark House style mystery thriller gets an affectionately murky makeover in director Jack McHenry’s Agatha Christie-meets-Lucio Fulci feature debut. In stunning Black & White, with cut-glass British accents and a dodgy American in the cocktail party mix, a sophisticated 1930s soiree at an isolated country mansion descends into carnage, gore and demonic possession as rivalries and old friendships are put to the test when a gateway to Hell opens up.
Three stories of strangers meeting on the edge of war. A conscientious objector and a roaming artist find tenderness as the carnage of the Second World War unfolds across the English Channel. A bereaved mother struggles with bitterness and love in recollecting her estranged son, lost in the Falklands. Deep in the Black Forest of Germany, an ageing holocaust survivor seeks to bring peace to disturbed young boy and his equally wild stepfather.
The Russian Czar Peter the Great commissions Jonathan Green, an English traveller, to map the Far East territories of the Russian Empire. Green sets off on yet another long journey, full of unbelievable adventures, which eventually leads him to China. On his way, the famous cartographer makes breath-taking discoveries, meets mysterious creatures, Chinese princesses, deadly masters of oriental martial arts, and even Lun Van, the King of Dragons, himself. What could be more perilous than looking into the eyes of Viy? Only meeting him again… What will prevail this time — the unflinching scepticism of the scientist or ancient black magic, which has already gained influence over the Far East Lands?
Yuli is the nickname given to Carlos Acosta by his father, Pedro, who considers him the son of Ogun, an African god and a fighter. As a child Yuli avoids discipline and education, learning from the streets of an impoverished and abandoned Havana. His father, however, has other ideas, and knowing that his son has a natural talent for dance, sends him to the National Ballet School of Cuba. Despite his repeated escapes and initial poor behaviour, the boy is inevitably drawn to the world of dance, and begins to shape his legendary career from a young age, becoming the first black dancer to be cast in some of the most prestigious ballet roles, originally written for white dancers, in companies such as the Houston Ballet or the Royal Ballet in London.
Jerrod Carmichael explores aspects of the black experience through interviews with his family in this HBO Special.
“Tormenting the Hen” a caustic satire of city mice in the world of country mice, where well-meaning cosmopolites clash with strange townsfolk in country homes, black-box theaters, backyards, and local pubs. Invited by a dippy, curator (Josephine Decker), playwright Claire (Dameka Hayes) is spirited away to an artists’ retreat to present a political one-act about race, resentment, and masculinity. Accompanied by her fiancé, Monica (Carolina Monnerat), begins as a welcome getaway for the harried pair, until an unexpected visit from town enigma Mutty (Matt Shaw) casts a threatening shadow. While Claire plays babysitter to a duo of difficult performers Joel (Brian H. Brooks) and Adam (David Malinsky) Monica attempts to maintain her sanity despite her lover’s decreasing attentions and her neighbor’s proximity. Each woman struggles to preserve her autonomy in an increasingly hostile milieu, building to a soul-shaking climax that offers no easy answers for character and viewer alike.
Martial arts expert Matt Hunter was one of the most promising operatives in Army intelligence until his parents were killed by terrorists, and he retired to the family’s farm in Louisiana to take care of his 12-year-old sister Sara and their grandfather Jimmy. Larry Richards, a black man running for the Senate, is one of Matt’s best friends. Larry has become the target of The Pentangle, a racist organization led by a man named Glastenbury, and Glastenbury doesn’t want Larry to be elected. In an attempt on Larry’s life during a Mardi Gras parade in New Orleans, The Pentangle kills one of Larry’s sons. Matt lets Larry, his wife Daisy, and his other son move to the remotely located farm so they can hide from Glastenbury and the Pentangle, but the Pentangle strikes again, setting the farmhouse on fire. Matt and Sara escape as the only survivors. Then the Pentangle kidnaps Sara, sending Matt on a mission to rescue Sara from Glastenbury and the Pentangle
After best friends Black and Blue’s restaurant is shut down, Black needs to find some cash — fast. He thinks his luck has turned when Blue’s son, Fatboy, and his best friend, Spyda,, bring him a stash of stolen cellphones, and Black decides to sell them on the streets. There’s only one problem: The boxes with the phones also contain the Colombian cartel’s stash of Molly, which Spyda decides to sell.
A German living in India during World War II is blackmailed by the English to impersonate an SS officer on board a cargo ship leaving Japan for Germany carrying a large supply of rubber for tyres. His mission is to disable the scuttling charges so the captain cannot sink the ship if they are stopped by English warships.
In the 1930s, a black postal carrier from Harlem named Victor Green published a book that was part travel guide and part survival guide. It was called The Negro Motorist Green Book, and it helped African-Americans navigate safe passage across America well into the 1960s. Explore some of the segregated nation’s safe havens and notorious “sundown towns” and witness stories of struggle and indignity as well as opportunity and triumph.
In the conditioning unit of a small chestnut can factory in a quiet little country village as winter slowly settles, a young ladybug gets trapped by accident in a cardboard box shipped to the Caribbean. His parent sets off for the paradise archipelago to find his little kid and free him. Once he finally makes it there, our hero finds himself entrusted with a double mission: find his offspring and save his new Caribbean ladybug friends’ home threatened by a human construction site. Thankfully our hero will be able to count on his friend the black ant that flies to the rescue from the other side of the world.
In China to donate his kidney to his dying niece, former black-ops agent Deacon awakes the day before the operation to find he is the latest victim of organ theft. Stitched up and pissed-off, Deacon descends from his opulent hotel in search of his stolen kidney and carves a blood-soaked path through the darkest corners of the city. The clock is ticking for his niece and with each step he loses blood.
Based on the play of the same name by Pulitzer Prize Winner Cormac McCarthy, this searing two-character drama mixes humor and pathos while examining the relationship between strangers who are brought together by desperate circumstances. Set in a New York tenement apartment, the story focuses on two very different men – a deeply religious black ex-con who thwarts the suicide attempt of an asocial white college professor who tried to throw himself in front of an oncoming subway train, ‘The Sunset Limited.’ As the one attempts to connect on a rational, spiritual and emotional level, the other remains steadfast in his hard-earned despair. Locked in a philosophical debate, both passionately defend their personal credos and try to convert the other.
Porter Wren is a Manhattan tabloid writer with an appetite for scandal. On the beat he sells murder, tragedy, and anything that passes for the truth. At home, he is a dedicated husband and father. But when Caroline, a seductive stranger asks him to dig into the unsolved murder of her filmmaker husband Simon, he is drawn into a very nasty case of sexual obsession and blackmail–one that threatens his job, his marriage, and his life.
The story of an old Jewish widow named Daisy Werthan and her relationship with her black chauffeur Hoke. From an initial mere work relationship grew in 25 years a strong friendship between the two very different characters in a time when those types of relationships where shunned upon. Oscar winning tragic comedy with a star-studded cast and based on a play of the same name by Alfred Uhry.
The career of screenwriter Dalton Trumbo is halted by a witch hunt in the late 1940s when he defies the anti-communist HUAC committee and is blacklisted.
Ben Campbell is a young, highly intelligent, student at M.I.T. in Boston who strives to succeed. Wanting a scholarship to transfer to Harvard School of Medicine with the desire to become a doctor, Ben learns that he cannot afford the $300,000 for the four to five years of schooling as he comes from a poor, working-class background. But one evening, Ben is introduced by his unorthodox math professor Micky Rosa into a small but secretive club of five. Students Jill, Choi, Kianna, and Fisher, who are being trained by Professor Rosa of the skill of card counting at blackjack.
Nacho Libre is loosely based on the story of Fray Tormenta (“Friar Storm”), aka Rev. Sergio Gutierrez Benitez, a real-life Mexican Catholic priest who had a 23-year career as a masked luchador. He competed in order to support the orphanage he directed. The producers are Jack Black, David Klawans, Julia Pistor, and Mike White.
