Kahlil Joseph

A conceptual and collaborative approach to contemporary journalism and entrepreneurship. It uses media as an ongoing work of art in the form of a two-channel video installation. The project explores the dimensionality of the news media format, interrogating the possibilities of truth while being aware that truth is also the foundation of ideology. News can be more than just current events and human interest stories. It can be a non-linear event, such as in the way Sesame Street delivers information to toddlers or ESPN to sports fans. BLKNWS is for people who have had enough of politicians, pundits, talking heads, oligarchs, and fear mongering.

Commissioned by Tate Modern, Black Mary beautifully fuses Joseph’s documentary, performance, fiction, and music videos in a single, breathtaking presentation of the singer Alice Smith.

Process is a striking, avant-garde portrait of Sampha using documentary-style footage to depict his roots in Morden, South London, and Freetown, Sierra Leone.

6.9/10

Music is My Mistress casts music herself as the central character of an unfolding drama across cultures, space, and time.

The second "visual album" (a collection of short films) by Beyoncé, this time around she takes a piercing look at racial issues and feminist concepts through a sexualized, satirical, and solemn tone.

8.3/10
10%

In this portrait, Kahlil Joseph takes us into an enchanting recording session by musician Alice Smith. Audio and video are not synchronous but blend to form an intimate portrait of a singer and a filmmaker, in deep concentration, engaged in a creative process.

Arcade Fire’s first feature film is called 'The Reflektor Tapes'. The project is “a unique cinematic experience, meeting at the crossroads of documentary, music, art and personal history.”

6.2/10
1.9%

Written and directed by Kahlil Joseph

A 15-minute piece on view at Los Angeles's Museum of Contemporary Art, "m.A.A.d." is hypnotic: a stirring, cinematic tribute to the city of Compton, and a beguiling non-linear paean to everyday moments of life, death and magic — all set to the textured, often abstract lyrics of Compton-born rapper Kendrick Lamar.

Filmed in Grayson, Oklahoma, Wildcat meditatively combines documentation of a Black rodeo subculture with an abstract portrait of Joseph’s aunt who helped found the event.

What does it mean to be Black in America in the 21st century? The recently formed Black American film group TNEG™ has set out to elucidate this very question. Hearing from the likes of fine artist Kara Walker and musical artist Flying Lotus, the film is based on a deceptively simple approach -- asking a refined list of black 'specialists' as well as 'uncommon folks' questions about what they think, and more importantly as lead director Arthur Jafa states, 'What they KNOW' -- the film is an unprecedented 'stream of the black consciousness' and a strikingly original and rarefied look at black intellectual and emotional life. What's so unorthodox about this simple approach is that the interviews were recorded separately from the images in the film. What results is a breathtaking, kaleidoscopic look of American black life from the dawn of three original filmmakers.

7.1/10

Set to a track from Flying Lotus’s album and shot primarily in Nickerson Gardens, this short features the astonishingly beautiful dancing of Storyboard P. Winner of Sundance’s Special Jury Award for short film.

Two young women embark on a dream-like adventure through the islands of the Maldives after an event turned both their worlds upside down.

5/10

"Black Up" is a short film that portrays a fever dream induced by the music of Shabazz Palaces. The film features songs from Shabazz Palaces' album Black Up on Sub Pop Records, as well as various pieces of unreleased material.

A rich and polyphonic portrait of black art and culture in New York City

6.4/10
1.7%