Black Lives

Black Lives

OVID.tv is proud to present a large selection of films about contemporary Black lives - from documentaries ranging in topics from Harlem's Apollo Theater and performer Okwui Okpokwasili to an allegorical fable by John Akomfrah.

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Black Lives
  • No Maps on My Taps

    Directed by George Nierenberg • Documentary • With Lionel Hampton, Bunny Briggs, Chuck Green, Howard "Sandman" Sims • 1979 • 59 minutes

    The golden age of tap dancing spanned the first half of the twentieth century, but by the 1950s, the form fell to the likes of rock 'n' roll and modern dance. I...

  • An Apollo Legend

    Directed by Brian Storm • Documentary • 2008 • 18 minutes

    Decades before American Idol and America's Got Talent captured the attention of millons on TV, the world renowned Apollo Theater in Harlem started hosting its popular Amateur Night, which launched the careers of Ella Fitzgerald, James Bro...

  • Kigali Shaolin Temple

    Directed by Claire Mollard and Magali Chirouze • Documentary • 2013 • 52 minutes

    Kigali Shaolin Temple is a kung-fu club in Rwanda started by a group of orphans from the genocide. They find fulfillment in passing on their skills and teaching young Rwandans the values of sharing, tolerance and mu...

  • No Time To Waste

    Directed by Carl Bidleman • Documentary • 2020 • 52 minutes

    NO TIME TO WASTE celebrates legendary 98-year-old park ranger Betty Reid Soskin's inspiring life, work and urgent mission to restore critical missing chapters of America's story. The film follows her journey as an African American woman...

  • Jaha's Promise

    Directed by Patrick Farrelly, Kate O’Callaghan • Documentary • With Jaha Dukureh • 2017 • 80 minutes

    Jaha’s Promise tells the story of a young woman who returns home to campaign against the brutal practices that almost destroyed her life. Jaha Dukureh was subject to female genital mutilation as ...

  • Street Fighting Men

    Directed by Andrew James • Documentary • With James "Jack Rabbit" Jackson, Deris Solomon, Minister Malik Shabazz, Derionna Watkins, Lorraine Ray • 2020 • 101 minutes

    In a rapidly changing America where mass inequality and dwindling opportunity have devastated the black working class, three men f...

  • Love & Diane

    Directed by Jennifer Dworkin • Documentary • 2003 • 155 minutes

    Jennifer Dworkin’s groundbreaking documentary LOVE & DIANE presents a searingly honest and moving examination of poverty, welfare and drug rehabilitation in the United States today. Filmed in New York City over a five-year period, D...

  • A Reckoning in Boston

    Directed by James Rutenbeck • Documentary • 2022 • 84 minutes

    Kafi Dixon and Carl Chandler enrolled in a rigorous night course in the humanities at a community center in their Boston neighborhood of Dorchester.

    Kafi, 44, sharp, witty and restless, dropped out of school at 15. She had her first ...

  • Black Hair Magic

    Directed by Alaysja Clark • Documentary • 2017 • 7 minutes

    African-American women discuss the struggles and benefits of being a black woman in America through hair.

  • Fate of a Salesman

    Directed by Ben Crosbie and Tessa Moran • Documentary • 2013 • 27 minutes

    Fate of a Salesman is an intimate portrait of a way of life on the verge of disappearing. In its 60th year of business, Men's Fashion Center in Washington, DC has come to represent identity, legacy and redemption for sales...

  • Black is... Black Ain't

    Directed by Marlon Riggs • Documentary • 1995 • 87 minutes

    Having grappled with the stereotypes imposed upon black people by white America, Riggs turned his attention to another fraught issue: the definitions of “blackness” that African-Americans impose on each other. Weaving together poetry, co...

  • Bronx Gothic (Okwui Okpokwasili)

    Directed by Andrew Rossi • Documentary • With Okwui Okpokwasili • 2017 • 91 minutes

    From director Andrew Rossi (Page One: Inside the New York Times, The First Monday in May) comes an electrifying portrait of writer and performer Okwui Okpokwasili and her acclaimed one-woman show, Bronx Gothic. R...

  • Multiracial Identity

    Directed by Brian Chinhema • Documentary • 2011 • 77 minutes

    Multiracial people are the fastest growing demographic in America, yet there is no official political recognition for mixed-race people. MULTIRACIAL IDENTITY explores the social, political, and religious impact of the multiracial movem...

  • Bless Their Little Hearts

    Directed by Billy Woodberry • Drama • With Nate Hardman, Kaycee Moore • 1983 • 80 minutes

    Searching for steady work, Charlie (Nate Hardman) views his chronic unemployment as a kind of spiritual trial. But selling a few catfish can’t sustain a family of five while his wife, Andais (Kaycee Moore)...

  • A Good Man (Bill T. Jones)

    Directed by Bob Hercules,Gordon Quinn • Documentary • With Nana Amoah,
    Bill T. Jones,
    Lindsay Jones • 2011 • 86 minutes

    A Good Man follows acclaimed director/choreographer Bill T. Jones (Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Still/Here, FELA!) as he and his company create their most ambitious work, ...

  • The Nine Muses

    Directed by John Akomfrah • Documentary • 2010 • 94 minutes

    Structured as an allegorical fable set between 1949 and 1970, THE NINE MUSES is comprised of nine overlapping musical chapters that mix archival material with original scenes. Together, they form a stylized, idiosyncratic retelling of t...

  • Quest

    Directed by Jonathan Olshefski • Documentary • 2017 • 105 minutes

    ​Filmed with vérité intimacy for nearly a decade, Quest is the moving portrait of the Rainey family living in North Philadelphia.

    Beginning at the dawn of the Obama presidency, Christopher “Quest” Rainey and his wife Christine’a ...

  • 12 O'Clock Boys

    Directed by Lofty Nathan • Documentary • 2013 • 76 minutes

    The 12 O'CLOCK BOYS are a notorious urban dirt bike pack in Baltimore -- popping wheelies and weaving at excessive speeds through traffic, the group impressively evades the hamstrung police. In Lotfy Nathan's wild, dynamic documentary (t...

  • Delphine's Prayers

    Directed by Rosine Mbakam • Documentary • 2021 • 91 minutes

    Delphine reclines on a daybed in her bright, cluttered apartment in Belgium, an empty crib beside her. “I started to work the streets like crazy,” she says, matter-of-factly recounting her life story. “Selling my body.” Delphine, who is...

  • Mother, I Am Suffocating. This Is My Last Film About You.

    Directed by Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese • Documentary • 2021 • 76 minutes

    As we float through the streets of Lesotho, following a cross-bearing woman and an omnipresent figure wearing wings, a tumultuous history of sorrow and suffering between the motherland and its people unravels. The through lin...

  • My Brother's Wedding

    Directed by Charles Burnett • Drama • With Everett Silas, Jessie Holmes, Gaye Shannon-Burnett, Ronnie Bell • 1983 • 86 minutes

    In 1983, after many long months of shooting, Charles Burnett sent his rough-cut of My Brother’s Wedding to his producers. Ignoring his request to finish the editing of t...

  • The Poets

    Directed by Chivas DeVinck • Documentary • 2018 • 99 minutes

    Syl Cheney-Coker (author of The Last Harmattan of Alusine Dunbar, which won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize) and Niyi Osundare (recipient of the Nigerian National Merit Award, Nigeria’s highest recognition for distinguished academic an...

  • A New Color: The Art of Being Edythe Boone

    Directed by Mo Morris • Documentary • With Edythe Boone • 2018 • 56 minutes

    Long before Black Lives Matter became a rallying cry, Edythe Boone embodied that truth as an artist, an educator, and a great-grandmother. When a personal tragedy ignites a national outcry, everything that Edythe has wor...

  • If This Ain't Heaven

    Directed by Roberta Cantow • Documentary • With Jacob Gaymon and Africa, his cat. • 1983 • 28 minutes

    If This Ain't Heaven offers a portrait of an African American man that may very well challenge any number of sterotypes and assumptions about masculinity and African American men. The film shows...