Black Cinema Gems

Ever wonder why you rarely hear about "iconic" or "classic" black films? Ever wonder why black cinema is so marginalized and rarely talked about? Ever wonder why most black films are so hard to find or lost forever? Well, I'll tell you why.....

Because very few people care about black films, unfortunately. Likely not you, not your mother, not your father, and most likely not your friends either. The majority of non-black films, on the other hand, have pretty much been preserved forever, and people usually go to extra lengths to ensure that many of the lost non-black films don't stay lost for long. Far too many black films, specifically classic black films, have been ignored altogether because the people of that time likely figured that future generations wouldn't care to see such films, and thus, most classic black films are lost for all eternity. You can read about them, but you can't touch them, feel them, see them, or even get close to them. Instead, the people who truly want to see everything black cinema has to offer have to search ten times as hard compared to if they were trying to find any other type of film. This can become incredibly frustrating for cinephiles who make it their goal to see nearly everything from everybody all around the world. But, it's most frustrating to black movie fans who want to get closer to their own culture through the films their own people have made. Even such filmmakers as Ousmane Sembene and Charles Burnett, who have a couple of films widely available to the public, also have a bunch of films they've made that aren't available anywhere to see unless you do some serious digging.

It's definitely the fault of society as a whole, and history's blatant marginalization of black film........well, let's be honest, anything black. A lot of people, whether in power or not in power, simply don't value black films much. It's not just black films made by black filmmakers either, it's black films, period. You can't even see 40 percent of them if you tried, really. Many of these films likely lacked support from their own people as well when they were released in theaters, so those same folks aren't safe from some of the blame either.

One question that often lingers in my mind is, "Why does Criterion only have less than a handful of black titles in their collection?" Why 'Touki Bouki" but no "Hyenas" or "Badou Boy" in their collection, arguably superior films made by the same director? Why 'Do the Right Thing" but not "Malcolm X" or the very influential "She's Gotta Have It"? See, even Criterion is biased towards black film, which further proves my point, yet they've flooded their catalog with non-black films of all categories. We're being neglected important pieces of film history.

With that said, I present to those of you who do care my personal list of black cinema gems; many of these are relatively well known but the majority are unknown and overlooked films the general public isn't familiar with. My main intention was making a list of pretty much all the ones I consider at least solid, so that includes favorites and non-favorites. I haven't seen everything, so this is just a reflection of what I have seen, which is more than the average person but still a lot less than I want to see.

The main criteria was, the film had to be at least decent and deal with some sort of black theme or have a black sensibility, and have either a single or multiple black main characters. But, here's the catch; Any film made by a black filmmaker that I felt was above average automatically went on the list even if the cast was white because black filmmakers deserve just as much credit for the films they make that aren't closely tied to their culture, which is arguably a lot tougher to do. The ones made by non-black filmmakers obviously had to fall in line with the first rule of my criteria.

Like I said above, most black films, specifically early black films, are impossible to find and not available anywhere to the public, and even many of the newer black independent films become incredibly difficult to see unless you go to black film festivals, which I highly recommend doing since they usually contain some real gems. The Pan African Film Festival in particular is wonderful. Every black person or person in general interested in black film should make it their duty to go to that festival whenever it's nearby. I was lucky enough to go recently since it was in my hometown of Los Angeles, and it was very refreshing and exciting seeing all the unique and diverse films from all kinds of new black talent, and participating in the Q&A sessions afterwards. Back to my first point: that's why there are only a few pre-60's entries on the list. I don't count on that changing anytime soon, but hey, miracles happen, don't they?

There are a lot of really good black short films like "A Storybook Ending' (2020) that IMDb wouldn't let me add to my list because their add to list feature is really bad, so thought that was important to mention.

My favorite Black films not listed on IMDb:

"Digitopia" by John Akomfrah

"The Drive-by" by The Hughes Brothers

"Colette Vignette" by Wendell B. Harris Jr.

"You Know Leadbelly" by Wendell B. Harris Jr.

"Gil Scott-Heron: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" by Don Letts

"First World Festival of Negro Arts" by William Greaves

"Kichwateli" by Muchiri Njenga

"Swirl In Bamako" by Dominique Philippe