""The news was just really front and center all of a sudden, in a way that I had never really noticed before, as a form of engagement and as a moving image format," said Kahlil Joseph, recalling the birth of "BLKNWS" while a guest on this week's episode of the Filmmaker Toolkit podcast."
""I remember turning to Ryan and saying, 'Man, we should just do the news ourselves,' in a kind of playful way," said Joseph. "And then in that moment, realizing who we were, what kind of agency and power [we had], and the opportunity we could create for ourselves.""
"The soft-spoken, press-shy Joseph isn't puffing his chest. In fact, at that moment, prior to "Creed" being released, he was the more established of the two filmmakers. Through his music videos alone, Joseph was widely recognized as one of the most influential, innovative filmmakers not working in feature films, with short-form projects like the 2013 "Until the Quiet Comes," for musician Flying Lotus, which won the Grand Jury Short Film Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, and the 15-minute film about Compton in "good kid, m.A.A.d city" for Kendrick Lamar. He was also the original visionary behind Beyoncé's "Lemonade.""
In 2015 Kahlil Joseph and Ryan Coogler noticed cable news coverage of Black people amid the presidential campaign and conceived BLKNWS as an alternative news format. Joseph identified news as a moving-image form that shapes perceptions of Blackness and sought to use cinematic agency to present Black voices differently. The idea began as a playful remark but embodied a serious aim to reclaim representation and create opportunities. Joseph's reputation from acclaimed music-video and art-world projects positioned him to realize a news project grounded in aesthetic rigor and community-centered perspectives.
Read at IndieWire
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