-
Beyond the Lights Opens Urbanworld Film Festival
It’s been 14 years since Love & Basketball came out, starring Sanaa Lathan and Omar Epps. Now the writer-director behind that seminal film finally has another love story hitting the big screen. Gina Prince-Bythewood’s Beyond the Lights makes its U.S. premiere Thursday in New York City at the Urbanworld Film Festival. As one of Hollywood’s few…
-
Belle: A Film That Defied Expectations
Actress Gugu Mbatha-Raw, who stars in the movie Belle—now out on DVD—grew up in England watching Jane Austen films but never imagined that she would play the lead in a period drama. Those films, like the books they were based on, never had black or biracial heroines, but Belle does. The film was inspired by…
-
A New Spike Lee Joint Premieres at Black Film Festival
For the first time in 18 years, the American Black Film Festival is taking place in New York City. Running this year from June 19 to 22, it brings with it an impressive lineup of movies and stars. From the opening-night film, Think Like a Man Too, to Spike Lee’s closing-night movie, Da Sweet Blood…
-
Lina Viktor: Who Spins Art Out of Gold
The artist Lina Viktor is every inch a living, breathing piece of art, from her gold-draped fingers, brown skin and blond hair to her skintight catsuit and platform sneakers. Some have called her the art world’s cross between M.I.A. and Nicki Minaj, but she begs to disagree, and so does The Root. Viktor is her…
-
The Science of Knowing Who We Really Are
For nearly all of her life, Kathleen Carpenter had thought of herself as white, specifically, one-quarter German and three-quarters from the British Isles. But, after doing an Ancestry.com DNA test, the 70-year-old New Yorker now has an entirely new history that includes some North African DNA. In addition, her brother’s test showed a small percentage…
-
Belle Director Wanted to Make a Different Type of Drama
When you think of Jane Austen-type dramas, you don’t think of black heroines, but a new film hitting theaters on Friday wants to change that. Belle is a period piece with all the beautiful costumes and grand English homes, but it features a biracial star, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, and is helmed by a black director, Amma…
-
Belle: Did a Biracial Woman Help End Slavery in England?
The new film Belle, which opens Friday, introduces the world not only to a black heroine from the 18th century but also to rising star Gugu Mbatha-Raw. The 30-year-old British-born actress plays the film’s lead, Dido Elizabeth Belle, the mixed-race daughter of a white English aristocratic father and black slave mother. Mbatha-Raw’s own mother, Anne Raw, is English…
-
Beverly Johnson: From Model to Mogul, 40 Years After Iconic Vogue Cover
It’s been 40 years since fashion icon Beverly Johnson became the first African-American model to grace the cover of American Vogue, and while a lot has changed since then for black models in the business, she says it’s not nearly enough. During a recent panel discussion for Fashion Week in New York City, Johnson said she…
-
4 Black Filmmakers Make Waves at Sundance
This year’s Sundance Film Festival concluded with four black directors leaving Park City, Utah, with awards. Although none of the four won the prestigious Grand Jury Prize, as Fruitvale Station did last year, the fact that so many black filmmakers took home honors shows that black independent films are thriving. This year’s Audience Award for…
-
Sundance 2014: 16 Black Movies That Matter
Will we see another Fruitvale Station or Beasts of the Southern Wild coming out of the Sundance Film Festival this year? When it comes to the annual showcase for independent films in Park City, Utah—now in its 30th year—all bets are off for predicting which film will generate the most buzz. Of the more than…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
