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Field Niggas

'Field Niggas' was streaming on 4:3 in October 2019

This hour-long documentary is a startling portrait of a Harlem street corner. Khalik Allah describes his intimate and singular vision as quite simply 'taking the hood off of the hood and showing you the head.' The film's title recalls Malcolm X’s ‘Message to the Grassroots’, in which he delineated his concept of two types of slaves.

Shot entirely at night on the corner of 125th and Lexington Avenue in Harlem, the film captures the mental, physical and spiritual struggles of the neighborhood's most exhausted and oppressed inhabitants. Photographed by Allah himself, ‘Field Niggas’ spotlights its subjects in stunningly composed, dignified portraits that are hypnotically woven with street images. The non-synch audio track consists of conversations with and among those faces: dreams, regrets, arguments, affection, observations, opinions.

Shot in July of 2014, with the heinous death of Eric Garner by an NYPD officer occurring mid-production, ‘Field Niggas’ is a breakthrough non-fiction film that serves as an ardent call to rise above social constructs.

The filmmaker’s latest film ‘Black Mother’ (2018), explores all aspects of his mother's homeland of Jamaica, with a special focus on the lives and experiences of the island's women. The film is streaming now on All4 in the UK and across major streaming services globally.

Khalik is still shooting in the area in 2019 and there are noises of another film coming soon.

'Field Niggas' is streaming on 4:3 for 7 days only