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
-
Aguirre, the Wrath of God
Directed by Werner Herzog | 94 mins | 1972
The first collaboration between Herzog and Klaus Kinski cast the notoriously unhinged actor as the even more unhinged 16th-century conquistador Don Lope de Aguirre—nicknamed “El Loco” or “The Madman”—found embarking on his final mission: a frantic search... -
The French
Directed by William Klein | 130 mins | 1982
“For me, this film encapsulates everything I loved and love about the tennis of that moment; and in the hands of the great and singular William Klein, it is at once a gripping sports page, a fascinating piece of reportage, and a work of art.”—Wes ...
