The Black Sea
All-Time Favorites
•
1h 33m
Directed by Crystal Moselle and Derrick B. Harden | 93 mins | 2024
A compassionate, convivial, and deeply humane improvised comedy from Moselle ("The Wolfpack", "Skate Kitchen") and co-director Harden, inspired by the latter’s own experiences, "The Black Sea" stars Harden—also providing original music under the name Dear Derrick—as Khalid, a charismatic barista from Brownsville, Brooklyn, who drops everything back home to meet up with a woman in Bulgaria… then finds himself stranded without a return fare or a passport, the one and only Black man in the seaside resort town of Sozopol. Likened to a “cinematic freestyle” by its directors, "The Black Sea" is a film of unexpected connections, happy accidents, and wistful romanticism, with Harden joined by Letters from Antarctica’s Irmena Chichikova as the local travel agent who becomes Khalid’s lifeline and a motley cast of non-professional locals giving performances packed with unpolished charm.
A Metrograph Pictures release.
Up Next in All-Time Favorites
-
Totally F***ed Up
Directed by Gregg Araki | 79 mins | 1993
The first film of Araki’s “Teenage Apocalypse” trilogy, which the director once described as a “cross between avant-garde experimental cinema and a queer John Hughes flick,” "Totally F***ed Up" focuses on six gay adolescents who, rejected by their families... -
Psycho Beach Party
Directed by Robert Lee King | 96 mins | 2000
The wholesome genre of 1950s beach movies gets a demented camp makeover in the parodic, perky-paletted story of Chicklet (Lauren Ambrose), a teenager who becomes a suspect in a serial killer investigation because of her multiple personalities. Screenwr... -
Hahaha
Directed by Hong Sangsoo | 115 mins | 2010
Two friends in a bar trade stories about their romantic exploits at a beach, which we come to realize involve the same people (including a restaurant owner played by Oscar-winner Youn Yuh-jung). Through adroit layering, Hong brings a wry sympathy to the ...
