An old quote, often ascribed to Jim Jarmusch, popped into my head after seeing Kahlil Joseph’s impressive feature debut BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions this week in Berlin.
“Authenticity is invaluable, originality is nonexistent,” Jarmusch is reported to have once said. Even with Jarmusch’s trademark opacity, the point is clear: Filmmakers should aim to create a practice that is personal and honest because that is what makes the work interesting. It’s a remix of Jean-Luc Godard’s famous mantra, “It’s not where you take things from – it’s where you take them.”
In BLKNWS, Joseph honors this tradition, trading in any broad conventions about the shape or content of feature filmmaking for a personal approach that is challenging, accessible, yet, miraculously, unlike much else we’ve seen on the big screen before.
The film, which screened in the new Perspectives competition in Berlin, is the latest incarnation of Joseph’s BLKNWS art project, which was originally conceived as a video installation at the Underground Museum in Los Angeles and was later presented as a two-channel installation at the Venice Biennale in 2019.
The film’s story, if we are to call it such, is anchored around three intersecting narrative devices. First, a visual exploration of the Encyclopedia Africana, a literary project W.E.B. Du Bois began in 1909 to catalog the evolution of global African life and left unfinished when he died in 1963 in Accra, Ghana, which is intertwined with a fictionalized exploration of Du Bois’s final years in the newly independent African nation. The film then hops onto the Transatlantic Biennial, an imagined art exhibition on a ship that sails the same brutal Atlantic routes that carried enslaved Africans to the Americas. Binding all this together are thousands of images, everything from internet memes to archive Agnes Varda interviews and spliced sections from the work of Joseph’s contemporaries like Garrett Bradley and Ja’Tovia Gary, that are skillfully layered alongside adetailed and diverse soundscape.
BLKNWS was one of the most talked about projects in Berlin. For those in the know, Joseph is the kinetic artist best known for his intellectually and emotionally dense installation works and music videos for artists such as Kendrick Lamar and Beyoncé. And for those perhaps longer in the tooth, he arrives in Berlin with some buzz from Sundance, where the film debuted and James Shani came on as a producer after the film moved from its previous financier, Participant, to Shani’s Rich Sprit — the company that brought Ali Abbasi’s The Apprentice to U.S. screens.
Collaborators on the project include scholars Saidiya Hartman and Christina Sharpe, who are credited on the screenplay. Steven Soderbergh is an Exec Producer, and Oscar-nominee Bradford Young (Arrival) served as the DoP. Producers are Amy Greenleaf, Joseph, and Onye Anyanwu.
Below, Joseph and Shani speak with us about the origins of BLKNWS, how the film passed from Participant to Rich Spirit, and their ambitions to give the film a wide, cinematic release.
DEADLINE: Kahlil, you’re an artist who has existed in different moving image environments. I think I first saw your work when you made the piece for the Tate’s Soul of a Nation exhibition. How are you feeling about now existing in the traditional cinema space?
KAHLIL JOSEPH: After Sundance and the past couple days in Berlin, I definitely feel like a new voice in a traditional space more than I expected. Onye and I have been wanting to make ‘traditional cinema’ our whole lives though so it also feels like a natural progression.
DEADLINE: Is there anything markedly different about the traditional cinema industry compared to the gallery world?
JOSEPH: Well, there’s not much in common to begin with. I would say the biggest difference is that the film industry is more accessible and popular.
DEADLINE: When did you first start working on this version of BLKNWS?
JOSEPH: Fall 2020
DEADLINE: James, when did you see the film?
JAMES SHANI: The timing of all this was quite divine. I was aware of the film being in the works but my friend Mohammad Gorjestani put me on a text with Kahlil to see if I could be helpful on Jan 22, the night before I was set to fly out to Sundance. Kahlil shared the screener with me that night and our lawyers were on with Participant the next morning.
DEADLINE: Why did you decide to acquire and come on board as a producer?
SHANI: We learned a lot from The Apprentice acquisition and release and we’ve been building out capabilities and resourcing to support independent releases from start to finish in a way that gives filmmakers a real seat at the table to distribute and promote their films along with a salary, additional profit sharing, and transparency that is long overdue in Hollywood. As we were reaching a deal to buy the film back, most of my conversations with Kahlil were around BLKNWS’ origins and history, how that coincides with the present moment, and what his future plotting looked like. Ultimately, I think what got us to this point is our alignment on the opportunity to do things in a fresh, unconventional way.
DEADLINE: Was the negotiation difficult?
SHANI: The negotiations are always difficult.
DEADLINE: Were you previously aware of Kahlil’s work?
SHANI: The first piece of Kahlil’s work I encountered was the Flying Lotus film back in 2012 or 2013. I was a music video nerd producing work for college friends but still experimenting with entrepreneurial ideas in the tech space. But that film rocked me to my core in a way that crystallized my career path in film. I knew I wanted to work with filmmakers who had something to say and pushed boundaries stylistically to express it, regardless of format. That’s really how my producing career started.
DEADLINE: Kahlil, You spent time working on this in Ghana? Where in Ghana? How was that experience? And how do you think it influenced the film? I’m Ghanaian, and the country has changed so much in recent years. It’s become a real meeting point for the diaspora.
JOSEPH: One of the biggest takeaways for me—and for the entire team—was realizing just how unhealthy America is, not just in a physical sense but in terms of pace, stress, and the way we relate to one another. Being in Ghana forced us to reconsider a lot about the environments we come from and what we’re doing in the West. It’s a place where the past and future coexist in a way that feels alive and found its way into the film. Lake Volta and in Accra is where we spent the most time, both of which deeply informed the film’s visual and emotional landscape. I actually wrote an in-depth piece for Filmmaker Magazine about our time there, because it left such a profound impact on all of us.
DEADLINE: You have some wonderful collaborators on this project, including greats like Saidiya Hartman and Christina Sharpe, who are credited on the screenplay. What form did their work on the project take? Were they actually writing scenes with you?
JOSEPH: Yes, Saidiya was deeply involved as a screenwriter on the project. I remember reading her first drafts and thinking it was some of the best screenwriting I had ever encountered—her ability to translate history, theory, and emotion into cinematic language is unparalleled. Christina’s contribution is also integral to the writing. Her scholarship directly informs the Resonance Field, the oceanic artwork that envelops the film. Her work shaped not just the ideas within the film, but the very way they move through it, creating a layered, immersive experience.
DEADLINE: Why were you initially interested in bringing this project into the traditional cinema space with a festival run?
JOSEPH: I think it’s the best place to see films. It’s still the best place to encounter something new that resonates with audiences.
DEADLINE: The film was briefly pulled from Sundance and then reinstated. Reporting in the press said this was due to some minor edits you’d made. Is that true? How do you feel about how that all unraveled?
JOSEPH: What matters is that people finally get to see the film and that we are part owners of it now. We get to decide its fate. People who actually care about the film and its audience.
DEADLINE: Kahlil, who have you been inspired by as a filmmaker?
JOSEPH: Everyone. Even filmmakers whose films I don’t like are inspiring. It’s hard to describe but it’s the diversity of voices and perspectives that is so vital and important. There’s a film whose title I won’t mention, but overall I disliked it — a lot. But there’s a couple sequences and certain choices the director made that were so incredibly inspiring to me and I think about all the time. I guess that’s what I’m talking about.
DEADLINE: What are your hopes for BLKNWS after the festival run? Do you want a cinema release? What’s the ideal home for this?
JOSEPH: Absolutely. I made it for wide release. The ideal home though only God knows.
DEADLINE: What makes a Rich Spirit project for you, James?
SHANI: We’re building out Rich Spirit in a way that allows us to be both incredibly hands-on with the films we acquire while also making room for filmmakers to meaningfully contribute on their releases. In some ways we’re more analogous to 90s indie record labels like Def Jam and what Rick was doing with those releases. The question we ask ourself is: Does the film move our spirit for the better and are we already tapped into the primary audience that makes us uniquely suited to help bring it to the masses?
DEADLINE: You’ve been credited with saving Ali Abbasi’s The Apprentice. What do you think it is about the contemporary film industry that makes it so difficult for films like The Apprentice or BLKNWS to exist? Why do you think they have to be “saved”?
SHANI: I wouldn’t say I saved the films but maybe helped them be experienced during an important moment in time that is certainly being challenged by the current powers that be. I believe The Apprentice is still the only Oscar nominated film without a streaming deal? And it’s not because we don’t want one. BLKNWS is similar in that its presence at Sundance and now Berlinale is crucial in this moment we’re in and there’s no doubt those same powers had a different agenda. You throw all political headwinds on top of an already risky endeavor where reaching audiences in the US market is more expensive/complicated than ever and it’s what we’re left with. I am optimistic though because great art will always rise, great artists will always shine and there are some very smart, well-meaning people working to address our industry’s challenges — shoutout to Kinema.
DEADLINE: Kahlil, right now, it feels like there’s a new energy and community among Black folk working in this cinema/art space. There are new great practitioners like Ja’Tovia Gary and Madeline Hunt. And interesting thinkers, too. Many of whom cite the work you have done along with your contemporaries like Arthur Jafa and Greg Tate as a major inspiration. What do you think about the current state of things? And the impact your work has had?
JOSEPH: If what you say is true, it’s humbling. I haven’t seen evidence of it yet but I believe you if that’s what you say. Ultimately, I believe we have some cool things to add to the cinema canon when it’s all said and done.
DEADLINE: What are you working on next?
SHANI: We’re heads down on building out a release plan for BLKNWS with Kahlil while growing our team and keeping an eye out for one or two projects we can later acquire later this year
