From “Black Panther” to “Jeopardy,” Stunt Coordinator & Actor Zee James Hits Her Mark

Zee James is an actress, a stuntwoman and stunt coordinator, and a background performer in movies and on television, ranging from Black Panther and Dolemite is My Name to Bosch and Everybody Hates Chris. She has even demonstrated an entire category of Jeopardy! clues about martial arts. James spoke to us about taking advantage of opportunities that might not be exactly what she planned,

Composer Jongnic Bontemps on Scoring America’s Past, Present, and Future

Jongnic “JB” Bontemps knows how to turn emotions into a musical composition, whether it’s for a character in a narrative or a historical figure in a documentary. Composing on narrative features, documentaries, shorts, and video games, Bontemps can speak to his collaborators in whatever narrative language they need. For Creed II, he provided director Steven Caple Jr. with additional music worthy of the film’s fighting spirit. For the doc United Skates, Bontemps threaded hip-hop through the story of America’s underground roller rink subculture as it was on the verge of being erased.

“The Investigation” Writer/Director Tobias Lindholm on Rethinking the Police Procedural

The police procedural has been a staple on television since its inception, and writer/director Tobias Lindholm felt it was time to shake things up. The Investigation, Lindholm’s six-episode miniseries currently playing on HBO, delves into one of the most sensational crimes in recent Danish history — the 2017 murder of journalist Kim Wall. And it turns the genre on its ear.

Wall went missing after meeting with an interview subject on his private submarine.

DP Marcell Rév on Going Black and White in “Malcolm & Marie”

From the moment Marie (Zendaya) strides into view, entering the borrowed Los Angeles digs she’s sharing with her director boyfriend Malcolm (John David Washington), you sense trouble. The couple’s home, where they will spend the rest of the night wide awake and arguing, is spacious and stunning, and Malcolm’s movie premiere earlier that evening was an unqualified success. Too bad the auteur forgot to thank Marie in his speech,

Yuh-jung Youn on Creating Family in “Minari”

Writer/director Lee Isaac Chung’s film Minari is about a Korean family chasing the American dream in 1980s Arkansas. Steven Yeun and Yeri Han play parents Jacob and Monica, who have brought their two kids Ann and David to live and work on a farm, one Jacob hopes to make successful. Yuh-jung Youn plays foul-mouthed but loving grandma Soonja, who leaves Korea to come help care for the children. At first, David thinks Soonja just smells weird and doesn’t act at all the way a grandmother should,

“To All the Boys” Producer Says Goodbye with “Always and Forever”

What began with a letter is poetically set to end with one too. Okay, probably an email, but you get the idea. Netflix’s hit To All the Boys series will premiere its final installment on February 12. As the trilogy concludes, Lara Jean (Lana Condor) and Peter (Noah Centineo) are simultaneously coming to the end of their high school career and awaiting their college acceptance letters.

We met the adorable couple in 2018’s To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before.

“Clarice” Producer/Director DeMane Davis on Seizing the Moment

DeMane Davis, co-executive producer/director of the new CBS series Clarice which premieres February 11, calls her career “incredibly fortunate.” But Davis was ready when opportunity arose in the form of Ava DuVernay. When DuVernay opened the door for women directors on her groundbreaking series Queen Sugar, Davis burst through it. On crutches.

“I had broken my ankle and I’d had surgery; the cast had just come off and I was still on crutches,” recalls Davis in a phone interview from Toronto where she is shooting Clarice.

DP Sean Bobbitt on Framing a Historic Power Struggle in “Judas and the Black Messiah”

The late Fred Hampton, former chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panthers, was renowned for his skill as an orator and his work in his community, though the American government chose to mainly view the young activist as a threat. After convincing competing and even hostile groups as disparate as Chicago’s Young Lords and the rural Young Patriots to work together with the Panthers toward the common goal of a better quality of life for all,

Charlese Antoinette Jones on Dressing History in “Judas and the Black Messiah”

With ample photographs and documentary material to peruse for inspiration, designing costumes for a film set in recent history has its upsides. On the other hand, the descendants of the subjects you’re working to dress—or the subjects themselves—may be spending time on set, checking for historical accuracy. Such was the case for Judas and the Black Messiah, director Shaka King’s (Shrill, Newlyweeds) depiction of the lead-up to and FBI assassination of community activist and Black Panther chapter chairman Fred Hampton.

“One Night in Miami” Star Eli Goree on Channeling Muhammad Ali

The first time Eli Goree tried to be Muhammad Ali in the movies, he failed. But when Ang Lee picked another actor for his ill-fated biopic about the heavyweight champion of the world, Goree forged ahead. In between TV gigs like Riverdale and The 100, he trained in boxing gyms, hired a dialect coach to master the fighter’s Louisville accent, and commissioned a stage play about Muhammad that he intended to star in for L.A.’s annual Fringe Fest.

Director Sam Pollard on the Legacy of Black Art in his New HBO Documentary

HBO viewers likely know the names Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald, the artists who painted Barack and Michelle Obamas’ respective official portraits. The network’s latest documentary, Black Art: In the Absence of Light, an expansive, joyous 90-minute look at art history directed by Sam Pollard (MLK/FBI, Atlanta Missing and Murdered: The Lost Children) and executive produced by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.,

Sundance 2021: Composer Kathryn Bostic on Scoring Two Docs About Trailblazing Women

As we near the close of the first week of Black History Month, it’s important to recognize those who are making history now. Given the overall lack of working female composers of any race, as a Black female composer, Kathryn Bostic has been carving out a road few have traveled, and she’s been doing it for decades. She arrived at this year’s Sundance with not one but two films for which she has supplied the score,

“Miss Juneteenth” Writer/Director Channing Godfrey Peoples on Her Potent Feature Debut

Writer and director Channing Godfrey Peoples‘ feature debut Miss Juneteenth is a subtlety powerful lesson in compassionate observation. Born in Fort Worth, Texas, with a theater degree from Baylor University (just a 90-minute drive south from Forth Worth on the I-35), Peoples’ Miss Juneteenth is a moving portrait of her hometown, and, more to the point, the tight-knit community of mostly Black people she grew up with. After graduating from the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California (where she met her husband and creative partner,

How Costume Designer Paolo Nieddu Worked With Prada For “The United States vs. Billie Holiday”

Few musicians are as iconic as Billie Holiday. So much about Holiday was avant-garde for the time, and as a queer Black woman of power, she ruffled more than a few feathers just by existing. Lee Daniels’ new film The United States vs. Billie Holiday is focused around one specific event in the singer’s life, chronicling her determination to sing the protest ballad “Strange Fruit,” and the consequences of that commitment.

Sundance 2021: Writer/Director Carey Williams on his Romeo & Juliet Adaptation “R#J”

In partnership with producer Timur Bekmambetov, who is known for the innovative film style Screenlife as exampled by Unfriended and Searching, co-writer and director Carey Williams offers his feature debut with a modern and of-the-moment adaptation of “Romeo and Juliet,” R#J, told entirely through social media and smartphone screens. Using an entirely Black and Brown cast, and blending text messages and Instagram posts with timeless Shakespearian language,

Screenwriter Kemp Powers on Finding Truth & Beauty in “One Night In Miami”

After nearly two decades as a news reporter, Kemp Powers knew a good story when he found one. Discovering that four cultural icons — heavyweight champ Cassius Clay, soon to take the name Muhammad Ali; activist Malcolm X; crooner Sam Cooke; and NFL superstar Jim Brown — had hung out together in Miami in 1964 inspired him to recreate that night.

Powers’ play, “One Night in Miami,” enjoyed a string of regional productions before it was staged at the prestigious Donmar Warehouse in London in 2016,

Documentarian Sam Pollard on his Must-See New Film “MLK/FBI”

A couple of days after Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his era-defining “I have a dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial, J. Edgar Hoover’s second in command at the FBI penned a memo describing him as “The most dangerous Negro in America.” As documented in Sam Pollard‘s new film MLK/FBI (On Demand and in select theaters), that 1963 memo launched the Bureau’s obsession with discrediting America’s foremost civil rights leader by tapping his phones and bugging the hotel rooms he stayed in.

Costume Designer Trish Summerville on Diving Into Hollywood’s Past in “Mank”

David Fincher’s black and white epic, Mank, revisits the storied Hollywood era of the late 1930s when Orson Welles was writing what would go down in history as one of the best films of all time, Citizen Kane. But did he write it alone or with the help of Herman Mankiewicz, a once sought after screenwriter fallen prey to twin drinking and gambling problems? In Fincher’s version of events,

Film & Fashion Historian Kimberly Truhler on her Book “Film Noir Style: The Killer 1940s” – Part II

Kimberly Truhler‘s “Film Noir Style: The Killer 1940s” is filled with detail, background, and insightful commentary about the slinky gowns, killer suits, and dashing trench coats that are still fascinating and influence us today. There are chapters on classics like The Maltese Falcon, This Gun for Hire, Lady in the Lake, Out of the Past, and Sunset Boulevard.

Film & Fashion Historian Kimberly Truhler on her Book “Film Noir Style: The Killer 1940s” – Part I

“Film Noir Style: The Killer 1940s” is a new book from film and fashion historian Kimberly Truhler about the influential, iconic, and unforgettably gorgeous costumes that helped define a genre and an era. The book, which is packed with images from the films, explores the way the costumes defined the characters and the way costume design and fashion design influenced each other. “Hollywood costume designers developed American style and replaced European couture as the greatest influence on fashion,