Black Is... Black Ain't

Director: Marlon Riggs

1995 / 87min / DCP

Riggs was dead of complications of AIDS at age 37 before his final film had its much-praised theatrical rollout, his depiction of his own race against time to complete Black Is… Black Ain’t: one of the many threads making up the rich tapestry that is his essayistic documentary rumination on Black identity—or, as Riggs’s survey of the dizzying diversity (and resulting divisions) in the Black Diaspora would have it, Black identities. A bravura performance bringing together a chorus of diverse voices, among them interviewees that include bell hooks, Cornel West, and Angela Davis, performances by dancer/choreographer Bill T. Jones and poet Essex Hemphill, and choice found footage material used to striking illustrative effect.