Black Is… Black Ain’t
Oct 11, 1995 | IMDB 5.6
87 min Watch NowDocumentary
African-American documentary filmmaker Marlon Riggs was working on this final film as he died from AIDS-related complications in 1994; he addresses the camera from his hospital bed in several scenes. The film directly addresses sexism and homophobia within the black community, with snippets of misogynistic and anti-gay slurs from popular hip-hop songs juxtaposed with interviews with African-American intellectuals and political theorists, including Cornel West, bell hooks and Angela Davis.
MOVIE COMMENTS
SIMILAR MOVIES
The Secret of Selling the Negro
SLY LIVES! (aka The Burden of Black Genius)
Kokomo City
Black Nations/Queer Nations?
Disco: Soundtrack of a Revolution
The Country Upside Down
America's Untold Journey: 450 Years of the African American Experience
Yooper Creoles: Finnish Music in Michigan's Copper Country
Maurice Hines: Bring Them Back
Swoopes
Black Fag
Paris Is Burning
Mr. Dynamite: The Rise of James Brown
Being BeBe
Elementary Genocide 3
Man Made
From Rodeo to Polo: The 1st HBCU Polo Team
Banished
Elementary Genocide
Lumières Noires
SIMILAR MOVIES
The Secret of Selling the Negro
IMDB 6 | Jul , 1954
Film commissioned by the Chicago-based publisher of Negro Digest, Ebony, Tan, and Jet to encourage advertisers to reach out to African American consumers. The Secret of Selling the Negro depicts the lives, activities, and consumer behavior of African American professionals, students, and housewives. A Business Screen reviewer noted that the film focused on the “bright positive” aspects of the “new Negro family.” The sponsor issued a companion booklet offering the “do’s and don’ts of selling to the Negro.”SLY LIVES! (aka The Burden of Black Genius)
IMDB 6.9 | Jan , 2025
An examination of the life and legacy of Sly & The Family Stone – the groundbreaking band led by the charismatic Sly Stone – that captures the band's reign while shedding light on the burden that comes with success for Black artists in America.Kokomo City
IMDB 6.7 | Jul , 2023
Four Black transgender sex workers in Atlanta and New York City break down the walls of their profession.Black Nations/Queer Nations?
IMDB 0 | Jan , 1995
This is an experimental documentary chronicling the March 1995 groundbreaking conference on lesbian and gay sexualities in the African diaspora. The conference brought together an array of dynamic scholars, activists and cultural workers including Essex Hemphill, Kobena Mercer, Barbara Smith, Urvashi Vaid and Jacqui Alexander to interrogate the economic, political and social situations of diasporic lesbians, gay men, bisexual and transgendered peoples. The video brings together the highlights of the conference and draws connections between popular culture and contemporary black gay media production. The participants discuss various topics: Black and queer identity, the shortcomings of Black nationalism, and homophobia in Black communities. Drawing upon works such as Isaac Julien's "The Attendant" and Jocelyn Taylor's "Bodily Functions", this documentary illuminates the importance of this historic conference for Black lesbians and gays.Disco: Soundtrack of a Revolution
IMDB 8 | Dec , 2023
From the sweaty basement bars of 70s New York to the glittering peak of the global charts, how disco conquered the world - its origins, its triumphs, its fall and its legacy.The Country Upside Down
IMDB 0 | Apr , 2009
Returning to the island that her father left 50 years earlier, the filmmaker goes back in time to retrace the history of her name.America's Untold Journey: 450 Years of the African American Experience
IMDB 0 | Jan , 2016
Chronicles over four centuries of African American influence on the development of the modern-day United States. Before Plymouth Rock and Jamestown, St. Augustine, FL had built a multicultural colony of free and enslaved men and women. This small colony would eventually set the stage for the first Underground Railroad in the late 1600s. Then, 300 years later, be the epicenter of events that would lead to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.Yooper Creoles: Finnish Music in Michigan's Copper Country
IMDB 8 | Jan , 2019
When the immigrants came to America, their cultures entered the "great melting pot." In Michigan's Upper Peninsula Finnish immigrants mixed their musical traditions with many other cultures, creating a sound that was unique to the "Copper Country."Maurice Hines: Bring Them Back
IMDB 5 | Nov , 2019
Maurice Hines -- actor, director, singer, and choreographer -- navigates the complications of show business while grieving the loss of his more famous, often estranged younger brother, tap dance legend Gregory Hines.Swoopes
IMDB 7 | Jul , 2013
Sheryl Swoopes famously has been labeled as the female Michael Jordan, but that's only part of the story. On the court, she was nearly as dominant as Jordan, winning a national championship with Texas Tech, three Olympic gold medals, three MVP awards and four consecutive championships with the Houston Comets of the WNBA, the league she helped start. She even had a Nike shoe named after her, the Air Swoopes. Off the court, she has had a life full of transitions. She gave birth to her son, Jordan, during the inaugural season of the WNBA. Later, she divorced her high school sweetheart and became the highest-profile athlete in her sport to acknowledge she was gay. She has struggled with love, money and personal identity, but has never lost her spirit. In this portrait, you will meet someone who is not your everyday superstar, but a woman who has defied a multitude of labels.Black Fag
IMDB 8.5 | Jan , 2017
A short film that gives voice and space for LGBTQIA+ blacks to express themselves freely, by reporting and documenting stories which are transformative for the viewer, proposing the correlation and criticism of two forms of social oppression: homophobia and machismo.Paris Is Burning
IMDB 8 | Mar , 1991
Where does voguing come from, and what, exactly, is throwing shade? This landmark documentary provides a vibrant snapshot of the 1980s through the eyes of New York City's African American and Latinx Harlem drag-ball scene. Made over seven years, PARIS IS BURNING offers an intimate portrait of rival fashion "houses," from fierce contests for trophies to house mothers offering sustenance in a world rampant with homophobia, transphobia, racism, AIDS, and poverty. Featuring legendary voguers, drag queens, and trans women — including Willi Ninja, Pepper LaBeija, Dorian Corey, and Venus Xtravaganza.Mr. Dynamite: The Rise of James Brown
IMDB 6.9 | Apr , 2014
James Brown changed the face of American music forever. Abandoned by his parents at an early age, James Brown was a self-made man who became one of the most influential artists of the 20th century, not just through his music, but also as a social activist. Charting his journey from rhythm and blues to funk, MR. DYNAMITE: THE RISE OF JAMES BROWN features rare and previously unseen footage, photographs and interviews, chronicling the musical ascension of “the hardest working man in show business,” from his first hit, “Please, Please, Please,” in 1956, to his iconic performances at the Apollo Theater, the T.A.M.I. Show, the Paris Olympia and more.Being BeBe
IMDB 9 | Jun , 2021
The intimate journey and unpublished backstory of BeBe Zahara Benet – a charismatic drag performer originally from Cameroon, and the very first winner of the culture-changing phenomenon, RuPaul’s Drag Race. With over a decade of unprecedented access, we observe BeBe’s struggles with celebrity, authenticity, success, and failure.Elementary Genocide 3
IMDB 10 | Aug , 2017
World renowned journalist, and award-winning filmmaker Rahiem Shabazz presents the third installment of his docu-series Elementary Genocide: Academic Holocaust. The first two documentaries in the series; The School To Prison Pipeline and Elementary Genocide 2: The Board Of Education vs. The Board of Incarceration received critical acclaim and launched Shabazz as a political pundit and academic ambassador for the African American community. Elementary Genocide: Academic Holocaust adds more statistical proof of the scholastic inequalities faced by Original people around the country. The documentary revisits the importance of education and its impact on self-image, family structure, financial freedom, and the collective future of African/indigenous people in America and abroad.Man Made
IMDB 0 | May , 2018
From adoption and homelessness to navigating relationships and overcoming self-harm, the four transmen in MAN MADE all have something else in common: they are all bodybuilders. Through the lens of FTMFitCon, the world’s only FTM bodybuilding competition, we delve into the lives of Dominic, Rese, Mason, and Kennie as they define what it means to be a man while contextualizing that definition through the social, racial, and economic realities of their lives. For the men of MAN MADE, it’s not about winning—it’s about stepping on stage and being seen for everything they are.From Rodeo to Polo: The 1st HBCU Polo Team
IMDB 0 | May , 2025
The first Black-collegiate polo team at Morehouse College chases national USPA certification, training a rag-tag team of charismatic cowboys who’ve never played the sport into tournament-winning polo stars.Banished
IMDB 7.5 | Jan , 2007
A look at three U.S. cities, which were part of many communities that violently forced African American families to flee in post-reconstruction America.Elementary Genocide
IMDB 10 | Jan , 2014
Elementary Genocide is a documentary executive produced by award winning journalist/filmmaker Rahiem Shabazz. The documentary appeals to a wide general viewership by addressing the social, cultural, political and personal ramifications of how the federal government allots money to each state, to build prions based on the failure rate of 4th and 5th graders. In America, where half of the 4th grade is reading below grade level and more African-American males are in jail than are in college, Elementary Genocide serves as a striking reminder of a flawed system in need of repair.Lumières Noires
IMDB 10 | Feb , 2007