Dániel (2015)

While the director didn't set out to make a feminist film, "A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night" reads as a reclamation of female power in a patriarchal society.

While everyone was going gaga over The Odyssey, Desert Warrior was quietly taking audiences on an epic Arabian “knights of the sand table” adventure

The Gates, John Burr’s new thriller film, is a disturbingly realistic portrayal of three Black twenty-somethings - Derek (Mason Gooding), Kevin (Algee Smith), and Tyon (Keith Powers), as they accidentally take a wrong turn into a gated community that’s more like a modern-day sundown town. The three friends witness a variety of crimes in their new surroundings, including an attempted homicide and an attempted rape. As they attempt to alert the authorities and do the right thing, they are thwarted at every turn by the worst horror stories of American conservatism - racist white suburbanites, reckless gun violence, corrupt police, religious mania, and a megalomaniacal pastor. 

In this short film, writer/director Nikita Hattangady focuses on Jai, a starving artist rooted in the latter category. Though unhoused, he works hard.

“The most disrespected person in America is the Black Woman/the most unprotected person in America is the Black Woman,” Director Spivey Jr quotes. The quotes are absolutely true. Misogynoir is a devastating social ill that is not given the weight it is due.

Yes, "Nope" is definitely about the modern obsession with turning tragedy and horror into a spectacle for people’s enjoyment. But it's also about the power of looking, who has the right to look, and what happens to those who are looked upon.