An Apollo Legend
Black Lives
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18m
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 Brown, and Jimi Hendrix, among many other famous African American artists. Still as vibrant and popular today as it was in 1934, one night a week the stage becomes an amateur's battleground, where emotions run high and dreams are both made and broken.
Up Next in Black Lives
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A Reckoning in Boston
Directed by James Rutenbeck • Documentary • 2022 • 84 minutes
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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...
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In Motion: Amiri Baraka
Directed by St. Clair Bourne • Documentary • 1983 • 60 minutes
IN MOTION: AMIRI BARAKA profiles the outspoken representative - formerly LeRoi Jones - of the Black consciousness movement who has been a major figure on the American literary and political landscape for three decades. Set in Newark,...
