In the last two years 4 biographical documentaries were released that I want to make mention of in the limitation of authorized documentaries that can sometimes miss the mark–Brett Morgen’s 2015 film, Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck,  Barbara Kopple’s 2016 doc, Miss Sharon Jones! and two 2017 films–Dolores on the famed labor rights activist Dolores Huerta, and ESPN’s Ric Flair documentary, Nature Boy. What I noticed intricately in these films were the tendency of the storytellers to speak directly to an audience who very much knew the figures the film portrays which incentivized the directors to take liberties away from key biographical accounts and details of their famed subject. I think it is because of the film’s full access to subject that little unknown information was provided, too much of a touch-up on the glorifying and celebrating the figures that were conveyed occurred, and, more importantly, aspects were over-done in direction and writing. Watching Morgen’s bio doc on Kurt Cobain I was left out of the very nuance that led to the eventual suicide of the musician. Details were ignored to the psychology of the complicated personhood that made Cobain who he eventual became–a loner teenager, quaint musician, and depressed young adult. While the stylized rendition of Cobain’s story were done superbly in Morgen’s documentary film portrait as a complimentary fallback to artistic expression and the celebrating of it, in the end such a treatment took the place of a potential strong and profound narrative. In Kopple’s approach to the biographical account of the dying R&B/funk singer–Sharon Jones–began toward the end of her career and unraveled backwards leaving audiences puzzled in piecing her biographical story together. We get her struggle and we applaud her resiliency but we want to know more about what made this star special and the character that evolved through the years. Here, the case of authorization limits how these two narratives can be told and expressed in unique dimensions and critical analysis–instead of just playing to the audience of fans.  The documentary films–Dolores and Nature Boy seemed like mash-ups of several projects eventually construed together. In each of the documentaries both the subject of the films were interviewed more than once–Dolores Huerta herself was featured three times in different sit-down interviews–assuming her different wardrobe and location of the interviews represented a different setup altogether. As a result, the subject’s commentary in the numerous interview soundbites overshadowed the scope of the subject in the film’s story through-lines limiting how deep and intricate the narratives were told. A lot of nuance were left out of Nature Boy which in the end parlayed too much on the wonder and mystique of the famed wrestler. The best bio docs that resonates for me is when all mystique, suspense, and wonder is either suspended or lifted from one’s biography as to get to the bare bone of who a person is and then coalesced in the story’s denouement. Two films who did a marvelous job at this tendency while employing a significant approach and style in authorized, green-light access–were the 2016 Oscar winner Amy, the 2017 Oscar winner ESPN’s and Ezra Edelman’s OJ: Made in America, and John Scheinfeld’s John Coltrane 2017 documentary, Chasing Trane.  Nothing was left out in the storytelling process. Nuance was accentuated. A story where no head-scratching moments, or confounding twists were involved. I believe Nature Boy and Dolores were done with, frankly, too much access–perhaps, as a respectful gesture to maintain the reputation of the subject. On an aside, there is certainly room to raise the inquiry of films’ authorization and how it affects bio narratives on figures who are alive compared to those that are dead. Nevertheless, biographical films should be free in telling an expository narrative with appeal and gust for insight if not, enlightenment.

So, again while authorized documentaries and unauthorized documentaries have both its upside and downside for filmmakers it is imperative for films to undergo thorough research beforehand to come up with both a framework and game plan for their approach and delivery on their subject for their documentary film. This can buttress the relevancy of the topic of the doc. Such thoroughness in pre-production can help a film come full circle and add to the reason why so many documentaries are what it is in today’s diversified film markets–both thorough and engaging works of art. While we, artists, aim for perfection in our works making the perfect documentary is a mirage. Instead, the final outcome for a completed documentary film project should be whether production teams maximize what they were given and allowed access to. Beyond money and prestige of the production of the documentary and the subject(s) involved, taking advantage of access in small and big ways can deliver documentary films to higher levels of resonating art and thorough products of entertainment and learning.

Fear—I feel you, I see you, I hear you, I sense you, I even touch you. You penetrate my soul just enough to consume me. Your goal isn’t to kill nor pillage nor degrade nor degenerate. Your goal is to control. Control my mind, my body, and my soul. Control enough for me not to move forward in my journey of liberation. Control enough to cloud my vision of prosperity and optimism. Your insidious and subtle ways and mode of behaving envelops so violently toward my consciousness to such a degree that I’m dragged through life. You help turn me into a war-like creature that brings battle to everything that I know–even myself. You help me to keep my neighbor’s children starving and my environment sickly in need. But what is your nature, I might ask? You are neither a thing, person, or place. You are neither an institution nor a program. Yet you infect as much as you create. You are universal in abandonment of all that is precious, sacred, valuable, and real. You are the poison that fills the void in human civilization. You are the disease of the mind that contaminates everything into destitution. And worse yet you cannot be blamed!

I see you in the most remote of places. In the classroom, on the radio, in an ant hill, in courtrooms, and holy altars. You come and go as you please—just enough to leave damage. All the negativity, violence, and indifference in the world are simply the products of your work. In Western society you mask yourself in mediocrity. In the Third World you wear the mask of poverty. All the “isms” in the world—sexism, racism, classism—are all your most successful projects. You force humans to look at themselves in the mirror of their reality only to see staring back at them a wretched creature too deplorable to even look at. No national borders can contain you. Bombs cannot obliterate you. Activism cannot stop you. Religions cannot erase you. Governments thrive on you. Sadly in dire times money depends on you. Your essence stifles critical thinking and usurps personal initiative and responsibility.  Worse yet, you have become a religion—a philosophy to live by. You help human beings to mobilize themselves into gated communities under security alarms in private properties embodied within invisible walls.

Your greatest allure is death—the end of the superficial and the beginning of the reincarnate. When all else fails in your pursuits you invoke the notion of death—the very thing that plagues the sleeping heart, mind, and soul. Your work in war, genocide, rape, murder, and the atrocities done to the plants and animals on earth remind us all too often of the certainty of you. But death symbolizes your last confrontation. The last powerful war you can wage on the subconscious of individuals. Your cousins—worry, anxiety, and doubt—play with death amongst the minds of your victims. But none of them use it so well and accomplish so greatly. Your meddling with the concept of death awards you the highest accolade of suffering in the world. You motivate the weak to conceive their journey of life to be primarily for security and comfort sake. You isolate human beings from their distant and close relatives in suspicion and envy. You help us to identify ourselves based on petty constructs like race, ethnicity, nationality, political affiliations and social assemblies. You help create environments of greed, history of bloodshed, conditions of oppression, circumstances of pain and agony, ignorance, deserts brought by exploitation, and religions delivering false promises of the selfish desire for heaven and the ignorant dread of hell. You come and go as you please—destroying everything in your path. As easily as you can be erased you too can come back—and sometimes even for more. You grab hold of the heart and never let go. You leave no room for growth or wisdom or hope. You create the present into shadows in the same fashion that you make bleak the future and dark your past. You’re as general as air and water and yet as ubiquitous as time and energy.

Nothing can contain you—yet everything can conceive of you. You make strangers among family members. Abusers among loved ones. Enemies among nations. Greedy among the once-good at heart. And worse yet, you make sick among the able-body. Your work among the physically impaired and the malignancy of health confers you as the greatest curse known to humankind.  You help multiply cancerous cells, raise blood pressures into hypertension, and progress flues, obesity, diabetes, and tumors. Your work retards the energetic compounds made to heal the body and prosper bodily outcomes from sickness to health. Your work makes stupid and foolish among men and women. You help limit people into complacency, mediocrity, and apathy—on their own volition. You cage them up in their own self-made prisons and dry up their seed for rehabilitation. You send them out into the world of confusion and contempt and force themselves to survive like animals fending for themselves. You help to motivate their societies and communities of people to think that an independent, survival mode is the only way for them to get by. You shattered their thoughts of grandeur for a reality in harmony to the ultimate ‘Good’. You turn them into pleasure maximizers and hedonistic beings as their means of coping with the world—a mechanism for self-pacifying. You tackled their spirits to the ground only for them to finally get up and acknowledge themselves merely as inanimate objects programmed to move through an existential space of chaos. You force them to consume without any end, learn like naïve children, forget as much as they accumulate, and struggle blindly without any purpose or meaning. And above all—they turned you into an idol for them to worship until death—which they call God.

Your most calculating role is hate—but you refuse to stop there—only knowing that you could do more. All the evil in the world wishes they were as powerful as you. You create a dichotomy in society among slave and slave-owner, exploiter and the exploited, the privileged and the oppressed. You move and flourish without care. You accomplish without regret or remorse. You are universal yet you enter into reality specifically and superficially. We are addicted to your tempting presence and embodying essence and respond to life as if we need you. You become so necessary that you become food to our starving bodies. You give human beings the excuse to idle along in life. You compel human beings to live impulsively, think irrationally and behave irresponsibly. The house you built is contained with rift, jealousy, and competition constructed on your solid foundation. You infect the minds of many and the hearts of the majority to confuse and beguile us into violence, subjugation and repression.

Alas, I found your enemy! It sought home and refuge under the rubble you left behind. It laid withered and unmoved under your scorching heat. Amidst the ashes of war, the bones of the slaughtered, the dried blood of dead bodies it remained still and ripe for its time in the world. There it has risen and resurrected the heart in the few of men and women alike. It is unlimited in its potential and unbounded in its creativity. It is as timeless as it is infinite. It turned your work of a wilderness of hate and war into a flourishing paradise of communion. It is your enemy not because of conflict but because of contrast. When it is alive you die. When it is conceived you don’t exist. Some call it different names like love, self-enlightenment, peace—but its definition remains the same. And yet, it requires a more careful use of language. Laying weak and small it was kept alive by the smiles of a small number and thoughts of only a few.

It knows nothing of discrimination and separation. It hides under no national flag, economic class, ethnic identity, racial group, traditional culture, or labeled religion. It sees the color of a human’s skin as no more significant than the color of his or her eyes. It doesn’t believe in custom, dogma, ritual, convention, habit, doctrine, institution, and other means to an end for one to get addicted to. It sees violence as an ignorant attempt to solve disagreement. It sees family spiritually holistic and not akin to blood. Money cannot buy it. Politicians cannot cater to it. Pastors cannot teach it.  Lawyers cannot defend it. Armies cannot guard it. It chooses not to compete but to create. It is a beauty of the spirit whose miraculous light blinds the ill-hated, fear-driven, impulsive-obsessed, and the materialistic consumer. It understands that freedom is internal and not conditionally-based on external circumstances. It changes its language from “desire” to “aspiration”, “comfort” to “liberation”, “success” to “peace”. It eludes the majority not because of its complexity but because of its simplicity. While you exist mortally—it exists immortally. That is how it remains victorious in your last confrontation and battle with death.

It knows how you are created—out of greed and selfishness. So in turn it helps the individual take a different route. It transcends the mediocre away from a life of dependency and subjection into a walk of life that is pure in empowerment and strength. It goes beyond the impermanent things of this world intrinsically powered by wisdom and guided by self-control. The way it defeats the like of you and the work you are determined to leave behind is by constant self-abnegation and thought.  Violence cannot subvert it. No human institution or establishment can change it. People cannot coerce or manipulate it. No price tag can be put on it. It is in the world but not of the world. It surrenders to nothing else but the oneness that is everything—the source where its essence comes from. It goes beyond the senses like the quiet green valleys that lay low and the still waters that flow. It cleanses the body, mind, and soul with a balance of truth, beauty, and, above all, justice.

Its work in the world erases national borders, lowers national flags, empties corporate offices, closes down governments with the sign of “out of order”, and destroys bombs, artillery, and the machines of war.  Its only commandment is to love unconditionally, live peacefully, create profoundly. It gives up sadness, addiction, weakness, and unhappiness when it gives up the self—the ego that humans constructed of themselves melodramatically of past events. But few actually embody and take in the radiance of its power. This power that it operates is of pure liberation and self-cleansing. But it comes with a cost. A sacrifice of worldly desire is its price along with a non-attachment of impermanent and temporal things of this world. Great teachers, divine saints, holy prophets and spiritual avatars of the past walked this earth teaching of its essence and beauty. But because of your work and tendencies they were killed, removed, or marginalized after having done part of their work. And worse, their lives were constructed in institutions propagating fear and ignorance. But their message still resides and is kept alive with echoes of a few. In the midst of death life persists. In the midst of untruth truth persists. In the midst of darkness light exists. Thus, as long as you are kept alive your enemy will still be here. As long as you are perceived as a fatalistic reality and seemingly invincible its profound power and essence will lurk in your shadows, amid your ruins, amongst your drudgery.

With likeness to things like ‘motivation’ and ‘inspiration’ that itch is more than a tall task to perform and execute. That itch is a calling card to one’s calling. It delivers one away from the everyday distraction. It shifts the focus to the focus. It keeps the artist alive. What drove the filmmakers of Virunga to go follow the park rangers in their constant pursuit to protect their national park in the midst of civil wars and armed insurrection from ragtag rebel groups in central Africa? Certainly, it wasn’t safety or security that prompted them to tell such a sordid story. It was that itch.

This itch does not guarantee success. Nor does this itch work solely in development and production–since it takes more to accomplish and attain. Rather that itch is the precursor and the leitmotif of the story behind the story. That itch aims for progress and movement. It propels an artist and his group forward with momentum and trajectory. It makes real the ineffable. Constantly molding the poetry with the prose, the abstract with the concrete, the thought with the action. Blessed is he or she to have that itch. Blessed is she or he to engage with that itch and use to act. To be controlled and then take control of the itch. To make imperative the scratch of promise to talent or honesty to story or wisdom to art. That itch fills up museums with pieces of great art and architecture, it fills up V.O.D. streaming sites with libraries of content, it fills up rosters of professional sports teams, and sets the bar for generations later of artists discovering, finding, and then delivering their voices.

There is a unique yet not-so rare phenomenon happening lately that has me pausing to reflect. It is a tendency either spurned out by or because of Millennials. It’s mostly a social acknowledgement and appeal that now has me wondering not just why it has come to be but where such thinking comes from. The phenomenon is the tendency for peer groups, family members, colleagues, and others to want to celebrate too early or for an upcoming event or anticipated situation. Lately, I have been invited to a tad too many soirees, meetups, parties, celebrations, and gatherings of events that praise an upcoming person or organization on a project, initiative, cause and sometimes even an idea. While I do understand the need for acknowledgement on a worthy goal and pursuit this premature congratulating that invites friends and family to come out in an expression of gratitude and symbolism for potential is rather trite, if not mediocre. Examples of such events that I am alluding to involves premature celebrations like completing the 8th grade and getting ready for high school, or launching a business or nonprofit organization, closing a distribution deal without sales coming in, etc. The kind of stuff that really should get a nod of acknowledgement and the whisper of: “Keep going! Keep it up!” Celebrations and congratulatory moments that  give tribute to a certain person or group must be posited on an achievement. Society needs to make achievement the worthy cause to celebrate not potential.

Milennials are–for good or bad–the first generation in human history to be taught and reared through childhood development that they can have anything they want, accomplish anything they put their mind to, and fulfill their dreamy lifestyle with exact precision with the consistent praise of being special. Contrary to the reality of the world where isms (racism, sexism, classism, etc.) lurk in civilization like that of pollution and humidity–Milennials are bent on entering the world with bountiful optimism no matter what background they grew out of. These products of the “participation trophy” generation has rendered growing youth to feel special and worthy of success. Molded in a milieu of caring teachers, parents, and peers Milennials battle the dichotomy of unyielding optimism and a stark reality that isn’t so bright and positive. This message of “getting whatever you put your mind to” shelters such youth-turning-adults into entitled men and women who are always looking for reminders of not only how special they are but what potential lies ahead for him or her simply by showing up.

I recently attended a panel discussion at a local film festival of a handful of young woman filmmakers speaking on diversity in the industry and accomplishing women success stories. While the message and theme was heartfelt and many ways on point I had an issue with the messengers. While the panel didn’t have the likes of Ava DuVernay or Kathryn Bigelow the panel’s little-to-no experience in the film industry and, more so, their lack of any meaningful achievement left much to be sought. I am a person who seeks incredible, brilliant people to follow for inspiration and motivation. But that person must be one of accomplishment and action not one who says all the right things. The choice to aim for achievement or potential parallels with aiming for action or words. Congratulatory events should be a worthy symbolic moment shared with close friends, families, co-workers, collaborators, etc. when an actual achievement has been established, a goal reached, a dream actualized. To put together a gathering where attendees look forward to what may come of someone is contrary to living in a world that looks up to winners and men and women of achievement.

A settling mindset begins to percolate and creep into the psyche and behavior of those who are honored and congratulated too prematurely. It will set ‘potential’ and what may be over realized goal-setting and the following through needed with hardwork and determination. We cannot afford to pat-on-the-back another generation of youth every time they attempt at something. An attempt does not equate accomplishment. An attempt is a first step. Eliminating premature celebrations like the ones mentioned makes clear that success is not guaranteed. Whether someone begins a goal and the initial process of that goal it is not enough for the awards and trophies to come out or the parties of congratulations to be held. Potential and talent may make for the initial process to get started but it must take more for accomplishment to come through. Here, is where I differentiate from the congratulatory appeal toward achievement versus success. A business’ short-term goal of sales, a young teens’ pursuit of making a team, and getting accepted to certain college are all worthy achievements that friends and family alike should acknowledge. Success in distributing one’s own independent documentary film, winning the state championship for your high school, and graduating college cum laude are examples of congratulations deemed appropriate. Achievement may or not be equated with success on subjective terms. However, the accomplishment of a given task and goal should be the focus in celebrating and commending rather than what someone is likely capable of doing and completing. Yes, grateful is the one who finally made it to the college of their desires. But, should that be celebrated in the same fashion and context as actually graduating from that college. Is their a theme of looking up to one’s potential as folks gather around or is their a sigh of relief and peace of mind that comes after a worthy pursuit has been attained–which can be shared with family and friends?

I am the Third World. I am a product of the so-called Developing World. I am from the most disclosed, marginalized parts of modern-day societies. We know we were never meant to count. We know our stories are but a footnote in global history. I see my light and presence in this discourse–however such conversations are limited. It’s now time that I turn my work’s attention to it. No matter how I build my résumé or the connections I make along the way or the added credits to the list in my growing, budding career here in the United State of America I must continue. No matter the luxuries at home, the car I drive, the clothes I wear, the food I eat, the compensation rendered from my employer or the perishable and non-perishable things I consume as a consumer I must evolve. I must continue and evolve to and through Third World narratives.

I am from the ignorable Third World. Look into my eyes. See what I see. Understand my heart’s desire. It beats for the forgotten, the ignored, the marginalized, the “less interesting”. In my voyage in the wild terrain of the documentary film world–in the midst of its varying niche markets and obscure realities–I see only the plight of the colonized mind, despotism in its most salient form, poverty in its most corporeal. Subject matter for documentary work in this perspective comes with a sharp focus toward realism–a probing if not piercing approach to the kind of elements of human survival–food, clothing, shelter and security. As I utilize my talent and determination toward a semblance of relevancy I must engage in this approach to subject and story. This can be deeply overwhelming–almost God-intertwined.

For me the so-called Third World is non-ignorable. I am no longer hypnotized by the amenities and products of the First World. I cannot buy it nor sell it–in form or substance or even in theory and practice. Its lifestyle and milieus no longer pull me in. There is an inherent contradiction in its form. It reeks of the kind of hypocrisy and brutality only conjured up in Hollywood-esque movie plots.  But, refugees, the Diaspora, exiles, and expatriates are all the voices of my Third World experience. As a product from these marginalized and close-out regions of the world I can no longer ignore their issues nor their echoes. They scream in time of war. They whisper in time of quiet totalitarian rule. My documentary film work must lean heavily into this terrain–with honesty and sagacity. To take my experiences and accomplishments of constructing top-notch quality work here in the First World and establish it through a film thesis of Third World subject matter is vital if I am to ever take myself seriously as a filmmaker.

Netflix’s Virunga, Roaul Peck’s film Fatal Assistance, and even The Square documentary by Jehane Noujaim are Third World projects done and disseminated for a First World audience. They allow the voices to story-tell with little to no filter. They are not foolish to place an omniscient narrator who understands their plight and “speaks” to the film’s audience about this Other World. They don’t speak with sympathy but convey with empathy. Some were dangerous to complete. Some challenged the filmmakers to embark in unchartered territory to the world where some of the largest media outlets rarely tread outside the times of immediate crisis. Documentary films about the Third World are not for the Third World. It’s for the privileged audience member who in the midst of the over-saturation of media content in today’s seemingly-endless digital space chooses to glance for a moment at another world–a world so wantonly misunderstood. Without that push and lean toward entertainment the film that paints a powerful portrait of the Third World is didactic–food for thought, compelling–education with a thrill, and engrossing–informative if not captivating.  Stephanie Black’s searing documentary portrait Life and Debt that examines globalization’s negative effects on the country of Jamaica brought Western audiences into scenes of a disguised and marginalized reality. It captured moments of the exacting economic condition neoliberal programs have rendered on a developing island nation–and leaves a profound impact of vivid interpretation. They showed the other side in truth and reality. Condition is the perfect word that binds the directors and producers of documentary films to the niche audiences who imbibe in its storytelling work of art. Capturing conditions paints pictures. It exhibits. It renders. It ultimately delivers. Revealing condition brings life to characters. It molds narratives in simple, understood scenario-telling and shies away from the confusing and stereotyping.

There are plenty of spaces for these stories from Third World landscapes. Out of the pigeonhole, scapegoating mark that the Third World has been regulated to for decades these stories matter. These stories change perspectives. They open up minds. They make a difference in various venues–education forums, classrooms, lecture halls, festivals, and all other things in between. These films break through with an indelible mark. The interview soundbites from God Grew Tired of Us, the narration from Lumumba: The Death of a Prophet, the powerful cinematography in Waste Land, the voices mixed with somber music in Born into Brothels. Who can forget these works when one’s eyes are compelled to look at a different condition outside one’s realm of thinking and being? Who can negate the power of the visual component that delivers such emotion and contemplation?

The Third World isn’t caught up in privileges, or consumer products.  They are not juxtaposed in the global space to sell things for matters of convenience. They lack what the First World very often takes for granted. But they know. They know where they stand in the overall global power scheme. They know what was stolen from them. They know how they were scattered and pillaged, confounded and deflated. But, the Westerners don’t know. The generations that follow Western civilizations don’t know–because they are rarely on the ground in the Developing World. Their planes from the Developed World fly with ease pass them. These documentary film works bring them right on the ground. They walk with them. They talk to them.

Filmmaker

Such a powerful word
Such a power to a word
Only a few are worthy of its title
Only a few are lucky to be worthy to such a title
Some make it to that word
Some yearn to make it to that word
Years define such a word
Years define a person to such a word
A not so easy title to use
A not so easy title when it’s really meant to be used

It comes with a subtle pain
A hidden notion of peace of mind
Delivered insidiously
Through a kind of undisclosed darkness
The necessary trial one has to go through
The kind every artist goes through
The kind where any creativity envelopes from
Mixed with confusion
Sprinkled with frustration
Marginalized from satisfaction
Matching choices to destiny
Rendering thoughts from visions
It comes with its own freedom
And guarantees its own tragedy

A dream word
Molded out of the abyss
Captured in visual-spatial form
Very often overused
Even misconstrued
In meaning
In thought
In practice
In a lived experience
In a journey for meaning
For understanding
For closure
It is in the artist’s art
It is in the artist’s true art form
To live it
To express one’s presence through it
And by it

Everyone and anyone desires such a title
But only a very few are actually picked
Youtube and Amazon made a lot think they deserve it
But time, work, audience, and the market prove just who truly attained it
Few are worthy of its power
Few understand its significance
The title to such a person is pushed by motivation
Driven because of inspiration
The term ‘independent’ usually accompanies such a title
Yes, idealism mocks such a person
Hunger eats away at this person
But it is only real when it burns
Even before one sees the light
As this artist captures a moment of a moment
And by a moment

From concept to completion
From start to finish
All production phases included
All the way through distribution
The word follows the predestined
The kind of destiny one cannot run away from
Lights, camera and then action
ROLLING, camera ROLLING
The title takes over one’s identity
One’s ethos
One’s place in the world

Beyond the fame, beyond the money, beyond the followers, and even at times–beyond the glory–stands a stalwart in independent filmmaking, an auteur in global art that spans nearly three decades. A traveling cinéaste with the fervor of an intellectual activist, the focus of an academic scholar, and the passion of a renaissance musician lies a one–Raoul Peck, born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti–reared in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, educated in Berlin, Germany, and currently resides and works in the country of France. Not yet or ever will be a household name on varying continents but a much understood force in black, international cinema. Raoul Peck is one of the most important filmmakers alive today. In a world where over-saturation of media content and the redundancy of mainstream work has taken precedence in film and television industries worldwide–year after year, work after work Peck has delivered powerful, memorable filmmaking. He has risen to the pinnacle of top auteurs today simply upon the fact of his global relevancy. His work bridges the gap among three distinct continents–North America, Europe, and Africa. His tireless execution of delivery has gone beyond didactic tendencies or educational forums–it has raised a much marginal level of awareness into the profundity of a necessary voice.

Like all masters of their given craft Peck worked his way late in the ever-changing film industry that began with humble beginnings as a taxi driver in New York City and then as a freelance photographer and journalist up until he formed his award-winning film production. Along the way he educated himself on his place in a world from black Caribbean roots to a citizen of the African mainland. Establishing himself as an autodidact Raoul Peck found his mark behind the camera delivering the juxtaposition of real life in the context of cinematic dramas. Throughout his stellar film work Peck consistently carries his growing, niche audiences into disclosed corners of the world to piecemeal the nuance of troubled realities. We see this in his biopic film, Lumumba, centered on the fame Congolese freedom fighter. In the death scene that culminated the climax of the film, a poetic voice-over narration awakens the viewer spoken from the actual, gripping words of Patrice Lumumba himself–“…Don’t weep my love. One day history will have its say. Not the history they teach in Brussels, Paris or Washington, but our history. That of a new Africa….” Rarely, is Peck afraid to jump into the controversy of political strife and delve deep into the gray of troubled society and suck out all its marrow.

Consistency is a rare mark among the longevity of careers–in any industry today. Consistency is where Peck made his mark, his living, his impact, his legacy. Written scripts that bring forth absorbing, moving sentiments carries his movies’ leitmotifs with little to no moralizing involved. Gripping scenes of demise emotionally moves his audiences to places few movie creators dare to tread. We see the maim, bloody bodies in his movie, Sometimes in April, a lucid depiction on the Rwandan genocide starring Idris Elba. We are felt by the cracked debris and the pulverization of Haiti in ruins in the movie, Murder in Pacot. Both films brings for the the nuances of human bodies in the midst of poor, marginalized black societies. Peck’s signature touch is of quiet acknowledgment from the long, self-reflective commentary lucidly juxtaposed with scenic images of telling realism, the quiet reflection of profound points-of-views from varying soundbites and narration, and even the simple music touch that carries with it an emotion of sorrow and hope. In his documentary, Fatal Assistance, he speaks to his audience with a pan aerial camera shot of post-earthquake hit Haiti where blue tents map out the given landscape: “Who’s going to save us from our saviors?”

Raoul Peck’s passion and enthusiasm is what should carry all artists forward; all artists forwarding into limitless boundaries. Bent on uncovering and exposing truth in its barest form Peck’s camera visualizes poetic movements from symbolism back to nature in its honest form. Seeking to raise awareness on controversial and complex subject matter Peck’s scripts is written in a lucid manner told in a philosophical tangent yet grounded in realism. In his biopic documentary, Lumumba: Death of a Prophet (a precursor to his latter narrative biopic) the carrying question of Patrice Lumumba’s fate as his country’s independence leader is conveyed with the quiet build of a biographical account. We pierce through the complex dimensions of a newly independent country–DRC, through the eyes of such glorified yet misunderstood hero–evolving from staggered colonization to stark despotism. His question of Lumumba as the prophet of not only the Congo but of central Africa if not all of Africa in the awakening years of the early 1960s–should be our question as the viewer too.

Peck’s gift to us as a master cinéaste shines once again in his latest Academy Award-nominated film, I Am Not Your Negro. Here, he challenges us and ultimately  challenges himself to deconstruct through the deep wounding reality of modern racism laid out in the vision and eloquence of the fiery James Baldwin. No other filmmaker could’ve accomplished this task. This intriguing storytelling approach takes the deep subject matter of a James Baldwin commentary and life story into an understood context to an audience not familiar with his work.  The film, written from an unpublished work of the passionate Baldwin and narrated by Samuel L. Jackson, guides the viewer in the intricate and contentious subject matter of American racism in the subsequent generation following the Civil Rights Movement. The documentary is constructed like a flowing arthouse, experimental piece where images of slaves, lynched bodies, Civil Rights icons are matched with and along movie snippets of African Americans portrayed in 1940s and 1950s-era Hollywood films.  Delicately interwoven with James Baldwin interviews and lecture videos that illuminate the articulate brilliance of this seminal figure in modern black history, I Am Not Your Negro hits home the direct question (if not answer) to the destiny of the so-called “American experiment” as it relates to her growing and diverse racial demographic. With the subtlety of poetic lyrics from Baldwin himself portrayed with the lucid depictions of archival material we better appreciate the nuances that is race relations of the late 20th and early 21st century.

To that–we must thank Raoul Peck for such achievements.

Something ought to be said about the Golden Age of Japanese Cinema for film historians, film buffs, film distributors, film enthusiasts, and fellow cinéastes worldwide. Something ought to be said for why a budding, African-born, American indie filmmaker is writing a blog on the topic in 2017 nearly two generations later–on the impact the Japanese made in film lore. Early ’50s through early ’60s Japanese cinema was by far the best in the world–light years ahead of Hollywood–with masterful cinematography, near-flawless acting, solid costume & production design, stellar written storytelling across genres (horror, drama, action, and romance), captivating stylistic approach, and even profound film music scores. Besides the works of the legendary international icon Akira Kurosawa other great, lesser-known filmmakers included Keisuke Kinoshita, Mikio Naruse, Yasujirō Ozu, Kenji Mizoguchi, Kon Ichikawa, and Kaneto Shindo. Such great Japanese films completed in this time period included: “Yojimbo”, “Early Summer”, “Sound of the Mountain”, “Harakiri”, “Fires on the Plain”, “Rashomon”, “Ugetsu”, “Floating Weeds”, “Children of Hiroshima”, “The Burmese Harp”, “Ikiru”, “The Human Condition”, “Godzilla”, “High and Low”, “When a Woman Ascends the Stairs”, “Repast”, “Seven Samurai”, and my favorite–“Tokyo Story”. What I find more interesting about the topic of the Golden Age of Japanese Cinema is not so much the profundity of its great film art but more so, how it has been snubbed in the global conversation on film history.

While I hesitate to group things, people, accomplishments, and certainly–works of art in superlative categories that begin with the “Best” or “Greatest” I feel rather slighted in my formal education on global, film history that have shaped cinema as we know it today. Without getting to the nuts and bolts of why this happened in my days as an enthusiastic film student I am convinced in one thing as the reason for this apparent snub–Eurocentrism. In a world where Western nations dominate the business, political, and economics stage and render a near hegemony on most activities, policies, and access throughout the world it is no wonder the academia, and the arts very much fell in line with “European thinking”. Moreover, coupled with Hollywood’s domination of the film industry especially after World War II we see a provincial outlook in the industry among movie directors, producers, actors, and even writers who have put out films through the years targeting a specific demographic market. Add that with the Japanese role in World War II as a member of the Axis power a Japanese snub come as no surprise as the marginalization of the “enemy” where not even two atomic bombs could help lift.

As a student soaking in the survey of film history I went through all the major film movements of study and the style its renowned auteurs put out and introduced. Italian neorealism of the mid-40s through early 50’s led by the works of Federico Fellini, Roberto Rossellini, Vittorio De Sica, and Giuseppe De Santis certainly paved the way in poetic expression of realism set in post-war Italy. French New Wave (the French terminology La Nouvelle Vague) brought a new approach with an avant-garde style that broke with conventional norms practiced for decades. Two of the movement’s seminal figures were Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut. Godard’s 1960 film, Breathless, is the best example of the movement’s rejection to particular norms as jump-cuts were used in the ongoing sequences of the film’s story. There is no denying Godard’s influence and inspiration among a range of important filmmakers later down the road. The British had its own New Wave film movement in the late 1950s through late 1960s which brought to the scene the usual in black-and-white visual approach but with a spontaneous quality, often shot in a pseudo-documentary (or cinéma vérité) style on real locations and with real people rather than extras–apparently capturing life as it actually happens. German Expressionism, a creative movement, that reached its zenith in the 1920s Berlin scene, actually spilled into film art as an infectious appeal. German expressionist films have been analyzed to have highlighted the coming days of the Third Reich. Then of course there was the film noir tradition of American cinema that traversed from the early 40’s to the late 50’s with the directing works of “The Master of Suspense” Alfred Hitchcock to the acting of Humphrey Bogart especially in the movies, “The Big Sleep” and “The Maltese Falcon”. Unfortunately, nothing on the Golden Age of Japanese Cinema. I had to learn on my own years after my days as a formal, collegiate student what the Japanese did.

What’s often illuminating in a discourse on the various film movements that brought it’s own signature and moment in film history is how each one was not only influenced by the next but how it utilized and, in some cases, transcended previous impact film approaches and styles. This is important in exploring how film artists through screen writing, camera directing, and acting played a long, continuous role in the thread of great, important filmmaking. However, Japanese cinema during the period Europeans and Americans were out and about creating could not be ignored. Akira Kurosawa seems to be the first and only figure to reach an international and mainstream audience with his legendary films: “Ikiru”, “Seven Samurai”, “Yojimbo”, “Kagemusha, “Throne of Blood”, “Sanjurō”, “Ran”, and “The Hidden Fortress” (which was the film to inspire George Lucas himself to create his Stars Wars franchise). Kurosawa’s nearly 6-decade legendary film directing career was established with numerous awards that etched his name in the place of film achievement rarely passed since. But, why only Kurosawa? As deservedly of the accolades he received and as great of a filmmaker he was behind the camera, delivering the best out of his actors, and the inserting of an epic fight and encounter scenes in the climax of his movies–why was his works exclusively the illuminating light and example for Japanese cinema during the moment of its pinnacle years? I can only speculate to such a question–perhaps, Westerners were only comfortable in filling one slot of a cinema machine out of a distant country to their growing audiences. Perhaps, it was the bitterness and animosity the West still held for Japan with their involvement in World War II. Perhaps, many film critics and historians were convinced Kurosawa’s works highlighted what the Golden Age of Japanese Cinema represented and that he alone was enough to prop up that era of film works. Maybe, Japanese film marketing was nowhere near as great as its films.

Whatever the reason for the apparent snub then and up to now one thing is clear for anyone who has encountered or embarked on the film works the Japanese were constructing from the early 1950s through the early 1960s–something special and timeless was happening. Masaki Kobayashi’s Japanese epic film trilogy, “The Human Condition” takes us to a place of profound emotion illuminated with almost near stellar perfection of the dark side of war.  Yasujirō Ozu’s masterpiece, “Tokyo Story” delivers an intense and gripping account of growth in modern human beings in the backdrop of a growing, rebuilding metropolitan that often leaves an earlier generation behind. “Children of Hiroshima” is another telling film story of the innocence in collateral damage war often creates where the searing shot of naked children running in the street from the effect of the atomic bomb and the nuclear effects laid out afterwards is as powerful of a film depiction as any other. What we are seeing in observing these trends of films is a powerful visual-spatial dimension expressed in each of these films delivered by the poetic movement of a camera, a vivid production design that captures every mood of the story, the leitmotif of moral lessons learned–philosophically undertaken and psychological understood. One can even make a leap in implying the importance of World War II to what evolved in the Japan film industry once the nation lost the war. It’s often noted that with successes and failures is the tragic comedy of life; the ying and the yang of positives and negatives toward what is achieved and established. It is in tragedy that we, human beings, often triumph.

Ironically, fakes news has gone viral. No, not just fake news but the subject of fakes news in and of itself has gone viral. Media journalists of all platforms, channels, niche markets, and hues have spoken out and written about the (not-so) new phenomenon of “fake news” propped and pumped up by social media. Inflamed by the current fire of daily social media postings and shares, digital content in the 21st century has taken on a new fold where deliberate hoaxes, propaganda, and disinformation are fluidly published and extolled on various websites—-all for the purposes of entertaining, informing, raising awareness, scaring, and—-believe it or not–educating many. But, beyond the appeal to consume and disseminate fake media content in printed galore or video streams is the heart of the true engine behind fake news—-cynicism. Cynicism is the precursor for such content creation aimed in the speed of light to be the first to “break” a story. Cynicism is the driving motive for anonymous trolls to flood social media timelines for the purposes of initiating a response in news content and kicking in high gear anger, fear, frustration into warped action, negative responses, and perplexed feelings—-even afterthoughts.

As the most contentious presidential race in U.S. history winds down in collective memory fake news has proven to be the aftershocks of the earthquake that came to be in America’s electoral process that culminated to a Trump victory to the White House. Broadcast journalists, beat writers, correspondents foreign and domestic–have all chimed in on the subject of fake news and its tendency–motivated by the surprise victory of Trump in November. Journalists and pundits have taken a meta-journalistic look into their own news business 24/7 cyclical operations from all aspects through social media handling and actual mainstream media reporting. What they gathered were known and unknown entities working in varying platforms, sites, and channels via the world wide web spewing content without fact-checking, corroborating sources, researching backstories, substantiating leads, and other necessary elements to journalistic work ethic. They called out names, they identified fake news content with the jaded and pejorative term “conspiracy theory”, they even hinted at advice to viewers, readers, and consumers on what better ways to take in content on TV, internet and social media. But, they left out one thing in their lashing-out analysis—-the cynical disregard to established order—-part of the motif of the 2016 U.S. presidential election cycle from the primaries to the general race.

Academics, think tanks, bloggers, and some activists predicted the moment in the transcendence of the internet age at the turn of the century where unlimited, Google-released information would be matched and over-matched by content real and fake, small and big, true and false. Cynicism as both an emotional roller coaster rush and a sit-on-the-sideline jadedness skews growing viewers tendency to seek media coverage beyond discernment. And, rarely does cynicism encourage one to do homework on what’s going on especially when messages and factoids are consistently delivered in today’s up-to-the-minute coverage. Where content is all too available coming in from all different directions unasked of the viewer-consumer focus becomes somewhat of a distraction in news at a local to global level. Sensational headlines and attacking soundbites lead the way. Mix the saturation of media content in an advancing technological age where opinions and punditry replace hardcore, impartial news gathering emotion takes on a different guise in being informed. Watch any ESPN sports morning and afternoon show to confirm this point. Google searches are done with a snarky attitude. Wikipedia becomes all too reliable source sought comically in a rush for quick, summed-up info. Here we insert human frailties and insecurities in mixed, conflating feelings toward celebrities, politicians, and athletes with the open space of everybody’s opinionating. What we get is—-cynicism unleashed in the field of endless information. More anger, vitriol, and distrust toward the established elite media political class seemingly un-curbed has shifted consumers response to media content and even re-asserted a brand new approach to news consumption and gathering.

Whether it is out of jealousy of popularity and class privilege, frustration from the voiceless and those whose perspectives are far too marginalized, or simply anger of die-hard sports fans cynicism has swept across the land among all people of all demographics which then taints the very platforms and channels in which they follow. The comments section in most YouTube videos are clear examples of cynicism unleashed. Viewers-consumers seek out their “own” truth to what’s going on to appease their mood and behavior at the time not giving mind to the fall into delusions and misinformation. Trump voters along the ride on the Trump train wanted to believe wholeheartedly in all the dark, sinister stories of Hillary Clinton’s behavior and use of connections via her email scandal. Even middle-of-the-road, independent, not-sure-who-to-vote-for citizens took in the past histories and business dealings and connections real and fake of the two candidates as a big conspiracy ready to make victims out of many as a way to justify their eventual pick. Pizzagate became the latest of fake news story debunked driven primarily by emotional highs of its perpetrators and followers in demonizing the Other—-in this case, the Democratic Party. Cynicism is what allowed fake news stories and promulgators like Alex Jones to become mainstream entities with a growing following of “believers”. Donald John Trump became the product of fake news in the re-tweeting of unproven conspiracy theories and the lambasting of media entities that reported negative stories about him. However, Trump did not create fake news nor help propel it as a new fad. After all, fake news has always been around–in the form of hoaxes, propaganda, and disinformation that came along with news content of current events for generations. Trump, the ultimate celebrity-politician (part of two hated groups today) allowed fake news to become mainstream and, sadly, accepted among a growing and real voting bloc of a cynical constituency.

Strangely enough–there’s a long tendency of Burundians to think that anyone who divulges a secret, even if it is true and about the facts is called a ‘liar’. The popular word in Kirundi-umubeshi is referenced to this notion. The thinking here, which may seem contradictory, is the feeling that such hurt that Burundians went through is not enough to articulate in words. Picture the Burundian who lived through the 1972 genocide retelling the horrific event to another person even a fellow Burundian. Another meaning could also imply that such sordid narratives must never be told. Therefore the telling of such stories needs to be put down swiftly–which often means discrediting the messenger and stifling any revelatory details. Any exposure to such revelation to truths, secrets and information–is shunned and dismissed. Umugabo afira ibanga or Gupfira ibanga are Kirundi expressions of keeping “the secret until death”. On the flip side this could also mean ‘”faithfulness until death”, like in the U.S. Marines motto ‘Semper Fidelis‘–Latin phrase meaning “always faithful” or “always loyal”. If my line of thinking is correct on this long tendency and practice of discrediting the messenger or limiting the access to accurate and profound truth-telling I believe it reveals a deeper reality to the level of trauma Burundians are living with. This trauma is brought by the constant cycles of war, hunger, insurrection, oppression, tyranny, injustice, impunity, pain, fear, betrayal and revenge. If people of a given milieu specifically and citizens of a country generally hold back in any dissemination of information, feelings, moods, secrets, facts, and experiences of their given environment due to an irreconcilable trauma important aspects are left out of the given narrative. We, who truly want to understand through the nuances of such narratives that are often relegated to the margins of history, will be left lost in piecing together the long saga that continues to haunt Burundians and their beloved homeland.