Black Mother
Feature length film Completed 2018
Director
Khalik Allah
Doc Society helped with
Development
Runtime: 77 minutes
A spiritually poetic and intimately political depiction of contemporary Jamaica.
"I'm depicting the undepicted. I'm taking what I did in Field Niggas, and multiplying that times ten. My artistic vision is to weave a wild tapestry of intimate words, sounds, and obscure portraiture into a cohesive energy that will penetrate the heart. During “triangular-trade” only the “wildest” Africans were thrown off onto Jamaica because their captors feared they would be the most rebellious and unbreakable slaves. This is part of the reason why Jamaica is so strong and so wild, and why such a tiny island has had such a huge impact on the world. This isn’t going to be a music documentary, a “talking-head” documentary, or a religious documentary. In the end it will be a spiritual diamond crystal of a film. I’m using film as a prism to depict the island’s inner light(spirit) through." Khalik Allah
Crew
This is highly sensuous filmmaking, not only in its vivid close-ups of flesh, food, and the natural world, but in the varied textures of[ Khalik] Allah's cinematography.
Chicago Reader
April 25, 2019
Like the culturally complex and often overwhelming island nation itself, Black Mother is a haunting and singular experience unlike any other.
Austin Chronicle
April 12, 2019
With its almost palpable earnestness and its reverence for the community it's depicting, Black Mother can't help but generate goodwill.
Film Comment Magazine
March 21, 2019
Many filmmakers are journeymen, able to work their craft. A few are artists, who, if they had a different calling, would be painters, sculptors or poets. This New York-born director fits into the latter category.
National Newspaper Publishers Association
March 7, 2018
Allah-who shot, directed, edited and sound designed his film-manages to paint a complex portrait of the island, making his visually unconventional depiction of the land come into sharp focus one provocative shot at a time.
RogerEbert.com
March 8, 2019
In its poetic, elliptical, concise way, this film makes a grand statement: The black mother is the mother of life itself.
New York Times
March 6, 2019
Allah-the movie's director, cinematographer, sound recordist, and editor-assembles a grand-scale and intricately detailed mosaic of personal, civic, and mythic portraiture in a mere seventy-six minutes.
The New Yorker
Feb. 28, 2019
