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S.o.u.l. Festival: Black Is Beautiful
Midlands Arts CentreCannon Hill Park, Birmingham
Sun 6 Sept · 19:00
About this event
Everyone knows the phrase. Almost nobody knows the man. Working from Harlem across seven decades, photographer and activist Kwame Brathwaite captured half a million images — intimate portraits of everyday Black life alongside icons including Stevie Wonder, Muhammad Ali and Nina Simone — always choosing beauty and joy over trauma. He also pioneered grassroots fashion shows that heralded natural Black beauty at a time when doing so was considered a radical act. When his son uncovered the vast archive after Kwame's death in 2023, the world caught up. Director Yemi Bamiro's exhilarating documentary traces that rediscovery, with Alicia Keys, Swizz Beatz, Gabrielle Union, Jesse Williams and Tyler Mitchell bearing witness to the enduring power of images that dared to say: we are enough, exactly as we are.
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