Black Lives Matter Video Essay Playlist

Last Updated August 21, 2020
Black Lives Matter. The need to stand for racial justice and against police brutality and systemic inequality is greater than ever. Video essays can play an important role in illuminating these issues, critically examining their representation in film and media, serving as a medium for Black visions and voices to be seen and heard in alliance with the expressions of all other people of color. 
To make this potential more visible, we are gathering video essays on these and other topics related to the Black Lives Matter movement, the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers and subsequent protests. Suggestions for additions to the list are strongly encouraged. The easiest way to send them is to use this form. Alternatively you may email BLMVEPlaylist@gmail.com or DM The Video Essay Podcast on Twitter/Facebook with links to be added to this webpage. 
For the purposes of this project, the basic criteria for “video essay” is an audiovisual work that critically reappropriates existing works of film and media. These works can be found in many forms and contexts, such as academic scholarship, journalism, YouTube explainers, video art and social media. We have organized titles within categories to reflect these contexts, while acknowledging that they are non-exclusive to each other. Our call for videos have yielded a wide range of submissions, which we have tried to list comprehensively below. At the same time, we retain an emphasis on video essays as videographic criticism: works that use media to think critically about media. 
Through its resourceful use of existing materials to reveal, reframe and redirect their meanings and purposes, videographic criticism offers a powerful mode of media production for those historically excluded from access to dominant media institutions due to racial or economic injustice. This has been especially evident during the Black Lives Matter movement through the use of social media as videographic criticism, as seen in the TikTok, Twitter and Instagram videos listed below. These are just a few examples of how this historical moment has produced exciting new forms of media criticism, which this list endeavors to document.
— Cydnii Wilde Harris. Kevin B. Lee and Will DiGravio, list co-curators

Click here for a complete list of screenings, press coverage, and writings by the curators about the list. 
* Indicates a work screened at the Open City Documentary Festival. Listen to the event here.
** Indicates a work screened at the Camden International Film Festival. Watch the event here.
VIDEO ESSAYS
1 Pewdiepie and The Rebranding of White Nationalism by Kat Blaque
BAMN, By Any Means Necessary by the Muses Matter
Black Celebration by Tony Cokes
BlacKkKlansman: Spike Lee Takes On Our Times by The Take
Black Lives Mastered by Steven Boone 
Candyman: Breaking all the Rules of Horror by ColdCrashPictures
Change Needs to Come by Nelson Carvajal *CW: extreme violence, police brutality
Cicero/Mt. Greenwood (1966/2016) by Ben H Creech
Conditioned Response by Craig Atkinson and Laura Hartrick *CW: extreme violence, police brutality
Get Out — A New Perspective in Horror by Lessons from the Screenplay *
“Get Out” in the Overseas Marketplace by Cydnii Harris
Good Cop, Bad Cop: How Hollywood Shaped The Police Narrative by Funbi Does Films
Graven Image by Sierra Pettengill
NOW! AGAIN! 2014 by Alex Johnson
Officer Involved 2016 by Josh Begley
The Parallax View Redux vs Original by Gal Nadler
Sur tous les onglets by Seumboy Vrainom
The White Savior Trope, Explained by The Take
Typologies of Whiteness: Sympathetic Cops b Heath Schultz
Unsettle Everything by Decolonize This Place *CW: extreme violence, police brutality
Videographic Criticism and Scholarship
Journalism and YouTube Explainers
A History of Black Stereotypes Onscreen by The Take​​​​​​​ **
America: Still Racist by Contrapoints 
Black Little Mermaid: Representation or Recuperation? By Angie Speaks
Color film was built for white people. Here’s what it did to dark skin by Vox
Diversity vs. Tokenism by T1J
How Capitalism Commodifies Revolution and Sorry to Bother You by Infranaut 
How Martin Luther King Jr. Wrote ‘I Have A Dream’ by The Nerdwriter
How Movies Help Us Understand Discrimination by Now You See It  
How Southern Socialites rewrote Civil War History by Vox
How White Savior Movies Hurt Hollywood by Insider  
Protests aren’t what they look like on TV by Vox
Real Talk: Is Breadtube Discussing Race “Right”? by Professor Flowers *
The Crackdown Before Trump’s photo op by The Washington Post *CW: violence, police brutality
The Killing of Mark Duggan by Forensic Architecture
Who Is Behind Police Unions? by Now This
8 Minutes and 46 Seconds: How George Floyd Was Killed in Police Custody by The New York Times *CW: extreme violence, police brutality
8 Minutes and 46 Seconds: The Killing of George Floyd by Sky News
90s Black Sitcoms Warned Us by Renegade Cut
Video Art​​​​​​​
a/ka/ Mrs George Gilbert by Coco Fusco (Excerpt)
An Ecstatic Experience by Ja’Tovia Gary (Excerpt)
Black Celebration by Tony Cokes (Excerpt)
Black Meme by Legacy Russell 
BLKNWS by Kahlil Joseph Documentation 1 Documentation 2
Fred Hampton in “Pen Up the Pigs” by Kelly Gallagher (Excerpt)
Giverny I (NÉGRESSE IMPÉRIALE) – excerpt 1 by Ja’Tovia Gary
Hattie McDaniel: Or A Credit to the Motion Picture Industry by Ina Diane Archer
H-E-L-L-O by Cauleen Smith
IDKWTFTBH – Briana Clearly
Liberated Zones by Dana Washington 
Love Is the Message, the Message Is Death by Arthur Jafa Documentation 1  Documentation 2
MOVIE TOTE by Ephraim Asili
One Document For Hope by Margaret Rorison
The Giverny Document Trailer by Ja’Tovia Gary
The White Album by Arthur Jafa
Unlocked by by Jazmin Jones *
Wash Us In The Blood – Kanye West feat. Travis Scott (Official Video) by Arthur Jafa
WHITEPEOPLEWON’TSAVEYOU.ORG Concept by Terence Nance, Edited by Janae Williams and Anthony Bartlett, Music By Terence Nance, Djore Nance, and Emilie Mosseri **
Social Media (Instagram, TikTok, Twitter)
Adjustments to Tucker Carlson’s Monologue About Protesters by @JohnnyHeatWave
BLM Avengers attributed to @vantaeotsvn posted by @ForAllNerds **
BLM is a movement not a trend *snap* *snap* by wordy.talk
BLM Protest Compilation posted by @jahknoras *CW: extreme violence, police brutality
cops ordering food by @mannyfidel  **
how to trump series by Sarah Cooper (@whatugotforme)
“I feel nothing” by @JohnnyHeatWave
NYPD police unions attributed to @bubbaprog
Seneca village by Hannah Stater (@hannah_harpist)
Trolling the police with Star Wars by John Smith @GOP_U
“Trump’s Inflammatory Words” by John Smith (@GOP_U)
“We see you, Mayor Garcetti” posted by @nickandert *CW: extreme violence, police brutality
Women in Black History: Marie Van Brittan Brown by wordy.talk
“3 Brothers-Radio Raheem, Eric Garner And George Floyd” by Spike Lee *CW: extreme violence, police brutality
Further Viewing 
Our call for videos yielded a wide range of submissions, many of which did not meet our definition of “videographic” or the parameters of this project. However, we recognize that no definition is absolute and that each of these submissions play a similar and equally important role as the video essays above. Below is a list of those submissions. As always, we welcome feedback on the titles included and their categorization.
Other Videographic Work
Documentary 
Adversary by Scott Cummings 
The Black Belt by Margaret Brown
Black Panthers by Agnes Varda
Concerned Student 1950 by Adam Dietrich Varun Bajaj and Kellan Marvin
Crooked Lines by Monica Berra, Yoruba Richen and Jacqueline Olive
Fallism by Lorhren-Rose Joseph
Frame 394: Toronto Man Entangles Himself In Police-Involved Shooting
Handsworth Songs by Black Audio Collective 
I Am Not Your Negro by Raoul Peck (Trailer) 
Nuuca by Michelle Latimer
Our 100 Days Episode 5 – State of Oregon by Adele Free Pham
The Bombing of Osage Avenue by Louis Massiah
The Murder of Fred Hampton by Howard Alk 
The Prison in Twelve Landscapes by Brett Story 
Shakedown by Leilah Weinraub 
Silence Sam Film by Students at UNC Chapel Hill
Strong Island (Trailer) by Yance Ford
Take It Down by Sabine Gruffat
to be continued… by Jamie Stuart 
VH1 Legends: Curtis Mayfield (TV Episode)
Where The Pavement Ends (Trailer) by Jane Gillooly 
Experimental Film
Black Code/Code Noir by Louis Henderson
Empty Metal by Adam Khalil and Bayley Sweitzer
Trigger Warning by Scott Fitzpatrick
Journalism
Music Video
Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos by Public Enemy 
This is America by Childish Gambino
Death Don’t Have No Mercy by Reverend Gary Davis
Social Media
Abolition 101 Webinar by Community Action on Prison Expansion
How Can We Win – Kimberly Jones, David Jones Media 
Want to get rid of LAPD helicopters? by Henry Dugan
Recommendations Not Available Online
Emergency Needs by Kevin Jerome Everson 
Funk Lessons by Adrian Piper
My Calling (Card) #1 Double Meta-Performance by Adrian Piper
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