11 Black Films to Watch Now Now and always, the Festival stands by the Black community and all of its filmmakers and artists. Our festival director Grainne Humphreys has curated this list of incredible films about Black lives around the world, all of which have screened with us over the years. We hope you take the time to enjoy, learn from, and be inspired by these artists. _ An Oversimplification of Her Beauty USA, 2013, Terence NanceBuy or rent here Terence Nance is the filmmaker, directing his feature-length debut, and Namik Minter is his would-be love, supportive friend (tragically) and muse. And their film — for it’s hard to separate subject from object — is a dense, organic, dazzling and funny tapestry, making use of varied and subtly colored animation and stop-motion; candid video; playfully verbose direct address; chapters and footnotes and doodles; and suavely chosen music and sonic bridges. (Nicolas Rapold, The New York Times) _ Half of a Yellow Sun Nigeria, 2014, Biyi BandeleRent here The film of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's 2006 novel, about lives in Nigeria torn apart by the 1960s Biafran war: the attempt to create a secessionist state whose flag showed the top half of a hopeful rising (not setting) sun. (Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian) _ Second Coming UK, 2014, Debbie Tucker GreenBuy or rent here Jackie (Nadine Marshall) is a middle-aged mum with a history of miscarriages whose family life is thrown into turmoil by the prospect of another child. For Jackie, her much-loved 11-year-old son, JJ, (Kai Francis Lewis) is a miracle in his own right. Yet the prospect of another pregnancy raises the spectre both of traumatic maternal loss and of marital estrangement from Mark (Idris Elba), with whom she has not been intimate for some time. Is Jackie’s silence on the subject of her conception a symptom of denial, deceit, derangement – or something altogether more mysterious? (Mark Kermode, The Guardian) _ Mother of George Nigeria, 2013, Andrew DosunmuBuy or rent here Adenike and Ayodele, a Nigerian couple living in Brooklyn, are having trouble conceiving a child – a problem that defies cultural expectations and leads Adenike to make a shocking decision that could either save or destroy her family. _ I Am Not Your Negro France, 2017, Raoul PeckBuy or rent here I Am Not Your Negro envisions the book James Baldwin never finished, a radical narration about race in America, using the writer’s original words, as read by actor Samuel L. Jackson. Alongside a flood of rich archival material, the film draws upon Baldwin’s notes on the lives and assassinations of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr. to explore and bring a fresh and radical perspective to the current racial narrative in America. (PBS) _ Black Belgium, 2015, Adil El Arbi & Bilall FallahUK rental here Two worlds collide when Mavela, a gang-affiliated teenage girl, falls for a boy from a rival gang. When their passions prove too powerful to resist, the young lovers find themselves facing an impossible dilemma. _ Wùlu France, 2016, Daouda CoulibalyBuy or rent here Ladji works hard as a bus driver to get his sister out from prostitution. As he doesn’t get the promotion he was expecting, he contacts a drug dealer who owes him a favour. A rapid ascent through the criminal hierarchy gives him easy access to a new luxurious lifestyle. But the price to pay is high. (Mubi) _ A Girl From Mogadishu Ireland, 2019, Mary McGuckianFilm website Fleeing war-torn Somalia in 2006, Ifrah Ahmed is trafficked to Ireland where a traumatic medical examination when seeking asylum reveals the extent of her mutilation as a child. Traumatised by the memory, she channels the experience into a force for change and emerges as a formidable campaigner against Female Genital Mutilation at the highest political echelons. _ Rafiki Kenya, 2019, Wanuri KahiuRent here A lesbian romance set in a place where such love stories, in real life and onscreen, are forbidden by law. Sparkling with effervescent colour and crackling with palpable chemistry between the two leads, this trailblazing film is a vital burst of energy, urgency and, perhaps most importantly, hope. (Roger Ebert & BFI) _ You Will Die at Twenty Sudan, 2019, Amjad Abu AlalaWatch the trailer here In a small village, young Muzamil has to live with the prediction that he will die when he turns twenty. His father has fled the impending grief. His mother, already in mourning, hides him away from the outside world. He tries to find a place to belong in the Quran school, the advances of a girl and the filmed images an old cameraman who has returned to the village shows him. _ Les Misérables France, 2020, Ladj LyWatch here Being the law counts for less and less as French docmaker Ladj Ly’s first fiction feature unfolds: A buzzing, sunstruck street thriller, it pits a nervous, trigger-happy police force against an aggravated urban underclass in a battle of wills and weaponry that is all too universally recognizable. (Guy Lodge, Variety)