Going To Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project (2023)

I had never heard of Nikki Giovanni but this documentary, which has great footage of her back in the 1960's as an early 20's as she is being interviewed by James Balwin, entirely confident and contained within herself, and he clearly enjoys the interchange. The filmmakers carefully synthesize a combination of new and archival footage of Giovanni, discussing and sometimes embodying her work in her typically direct, unsentimental, and deeply moving style. The end result, for me, was to fall in love with someone who was previously unknown to me. She was one of the luminaries of the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s into the 1970s, and she is now a 79-year-old who continues to address the pain and joys, the anger and resilience of the descendants of the Middle Passage, who know much about uncertain and dangerous journeys. The title of the documentary comes from something she saud, that if they want to populate outer space they need to send black women, because they have been getting it done for centuries. It’s genuinely refreshing to see Giovanni celebrated for having a personality that extends beyond her youth into her elder years. Yes, she’s rightfully shown speaking to and lighting up auditoriums full of fans, many of whom are Black women, but not just because they presumably share similar experiences or skin color. Rather,the filmmakers show and contextualize scenes of Giovanni’s public appearances, some televised and others filmed at recent speaking engagements, as proof of her animating presence. It’s one thing to hail Giovanni as an iconic presence and another to show her talk about and exemplify the qualities that have made her and her work so indispensable. The scenes where she reads her poetry are particularly good, and this is well worth watching.