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Ibram X. Kendi is developing a documentary based on his bestselling book “How to Raise an Antiracist.”

The project is one of seven book-to-screen adaptations in the works at his production company Maroon Visions, which is overseen by head of development and production Michael Lebowitz. The company previously produced Netflix’s “Stamped From the Beginning,” based on Kendi’s book of the same name, and ESPN’s “Skin in the Game.” Kendi and Lebovitz serve as executive producers on each of the adaptations.

“How to Raise an Antiracist” is a follow-up to Kendi’s 2019 book “How to Be an Antiracist.” Published in 2023 via Penguin Random House, the book “guides parents, caregivers and teachers on how to protect children from harmfully racist messages while raising them to come of age and join the efforts to create equity and justice for all.”

Maroon Visions is also developing a scripted series based on...

Today, the Nantucket Film Festival, which featured conversations with Ken Burns and many others, announced winners for this year’s 29th edition of the fest. In addition to Audience Award winners, they have also released winners for Best of Fest, the Tony Cox Screenplay Competition, the Adrienne Shelly Foundation Award, and many others.

“It is a privilege to honor this cohort of both established and emerging screenwriters and storytellers, who represent the heart of our industry, at the 2024 edition of the festival,” said Mystelle Brabbée, Executive Director of the Nantucket Film Festival, and Anita Raswant, Lead Programmer of the Nantucket Film Festival. “Thank you to all of our attending filmmakers and writers for sharing their powerful stories with us and our passionate audiences who continue to turn out to the theaters and support our mission. We would like to take a moment to recognize our jurors, sponsors, staff, and volunteers,...

The Nantucket Film Festival has set the lineup for its 2024 edition and will honor Emmy-nominated writer-producer Kerry Ehrin, Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Roger Ross Williams and Girls5Eva showrunner Meredith Scardino.

The 29th edition of the festival will open with Josh Margolin’s June Squibb-starrer Thelma, close with Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui’s Christopher Reeve documentary Super/Man and Jeff Zimbalist’s documentary Skywalkers: A Love Story, about a daredevil couple who secretly filmed themselves climbing the world’s last super skyscraper. The festival will also continue its tradition of screening a Disney or Pixar film on its opening day, with a festival screening of Inside Out 2.

The festival also announced several honorees: Ehrin will receive the Excellence in Television Writing Award; Williams will receive the Career Achievement in Filmmaking Award and his latest feature Stamped From the Beginning, based on the book of the same name by Ibram X. Kendi,...

We sat down with Roger Ross Williams, Ibram X Kendi & Mara Brock Akil to talk about the importance of their new film – Netflix’s Stamped from the Beginning. Directed by Oscar-winning director Roger Ross Williams, based on Dr. Ibram X. Kendi’s New York Times best-selling book of the same name, it exposes the long-standing and powerful presence of anti-black racism in American history, using vivid animations and leading female scholars to explore the history of anti-Black racist ideas.

Leading female academics and activists such as Dr. Angela Davis, Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, Brittany Packnett Cunningham, Dr. Jennifer L. Morgan, and Dr. Kendi guide viewers through a searing account of how racist tropes and imagery were developed and enshrined in American culture

Linda Marric asks the questions.

Stamped from the Beginning is available to watch on Netflix now.

Stamped from the Beginning Interviews

The post Stamped from the Beginning Interviews – Roger Ross Williams,...

In the spring of 2022, Ibram X. Kendi was recognized as one of the most banned authors in America. The National Book Award winner’s passionate reporting on the permeation of racist ideas throughout American history riled up conservative proponents, leading to three of Kendi’s tomes being banned in six school districts across multiple states. Now, his efforts to expose racist ideology is the subject of a new Netflix documentary, Stamped From the Beginning.

Stamped From the Beginning, based on Kendi’s 2016 book of the same name, shines a light...

The token image of a white celebrity and a bunch of colored, underprivileged kids serving as the celebrity being all woke and progressive gets rightfully mocked in Stamped from the Beginning. The new Netflix documentary film doesn’t hold anything back as it deconstructs the concept of racism in America. Instead of telling a story, it raises important questions and also comes up with proper, logical answers. Armed with thoughtful animation of many kinds, tons of clippings from popular and accessible movies, and a whole bunch of Black men and women candidly talking about everything uncomfortable, Stamped from the Beginning is a fiery piece of documentary and undoubtedly one of the very best to come out of Netflix in recent times. The credit for that fully goes to its source material, the best-selling book of the same name by author, historian, and anti-racism activist Ibram X. Kendi, as well as...

“Stamped from the Beginning” opens by asking its viewers a simple question: “What is wrong with Black people?”

In a conversational setting, any halfway decent person’s reaction would be a knee-jerk dismissal of the premise — either with a charitable “nothing at all” or a more blunt “what the hell are you talking about?” But in a theoretical context, the Black academics who appear in Roger Ross Williams’ new documentary think it’s a question worth asking. Given the anti-Black discrimination that began with the Transatlantic slave trade and continued through the Jim Crow era and persists in less overt forms today, Williams’ various talking heads argue that it’s fair to wonder what Black people did to deserve it.

It shouldn’t be a spoiler to say that the film concludes the Black community did not, in fact, deserve to be systemically marginalized for centuries. Instead, the Netflix adaptation...

Roger Ross Williams is having quite the year. So far, the Oscar-winning director has released his first fiction film, Amazon Studios’ “Cassandro”; the HBO documentary “Love to Love You, Donna Summer”; AppleTV+ docuseries “The Super Models”; and Hulu miniseries “The 1619 Project.”

Joining Williams’ impressive output this year is Netflix’s “Stamped From the Beginning,” an adaptation of the eponymous bestselling book by Ibram X. Kendi about the history of racism and anti-Blackness in the U.S. The film has its European premiere at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam on Tuesday.

To have “Stamped From the Beginning” play at the festival is special to the American director, who now lives in the Dutch capital. “Amsterdam is my home, I love the city so much. IDFA is such an important festival for the Dutch community but it’s also an important festival for me, personally, being a Dutch resident married to a Dutch person,...

Many of us probably think we know how racist anti-Black ideas started or think racism was always part of the human condition. Director Roger Ross Williams challenges these notions with his adaptation of Ibram X. Kendi’s book “Stamped From the Beginning.” Relying on testimony from Black female scholars and Kendi’s research, the helmer starts by posing a provocative question: “What is wrong with Black people?” By the end of the film, Williams unsparingly topples the sanctimoniousness inherent in thinking the answer is simple or clear. Even if it is.

True to its title, “Stamped From the Beginning” seeks to explain the origin of anti-Blackness. According to activist Angela Davis, one of the esteemed talking heads who give the film its credibility: “It’s not about the color of one’s skin or the grade of one’s hair. It’s about slavery.” That is how Europeans justified the...

Oscar-winning director Roger Ross Williams talks to high-profile Black women in a hybrid documentary/animation based on Dr Ibram X Kendi’s landmark book

Dr Ibram X Kendi first published Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America in 2016 and it’s since had many forms, though this 92-minute film might be the most heart-poundingly persuasive yet. Alongside Ava DuVernay’s Academy Award-winning 13th and Elvis Mitchell’s delightfully idiosyncratic Is That Black Enough for You?!? it also solidifies Netflix’s reputation as a home for worthwhile Black history documentaries.

The film’s particular innovation is to privilege Black women’s perspectives on the history of American racism, and with the exception of Kendi himself, every expert commentator here is a Black woman. It’s an undeniable coup to have legendary movement leader Angela Davis included, though she doesn’t say much. More memorable are contributions...

Mike Birbiglia Sets “The Old Man and the Pool” Comedy Special at Netflix

Following a run on both Broadway and in the West End, Mike Birbiglia is bringing his comedy special “The Old Man and the Pool” to Netflix for all to see.

The new special is Birbiglia’s fifth for the streamer, starting with 2008’s “What I Should Have Said Was Nothing” and up to his most recent, “The New One,” in 2019. “The Old Man and the Pool” sees Birbiglia “take on life’s big questions: why are we here? What’s next? Exactly how much chlorine are they putting in the Ymca pool?”

The show ran on Broadway from Nov. 13, 2022–Jan. 15, 2023, followed by its run in London’s West End from Sept. 12–Oct. 7. The hour-long special debuts on the streamer on Nov. 21.

Sign Up $6.99+ / month netflix.com “Good Burger” Sequel Releases Official Trailer

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Following up his narrative drama Cassandro, Roger Ross Williams returned to the documentary realm for his second feature of the year with Stamped from the Beginning. Adapting Dr. Ibram X. Kendi’s book, the TIFF selection utilizes vivid animations and leading female scholars to explore the history of anti-Black racist ideas. Ahead of a Netflix release next month, the first trailer has now arrived.

Here’s the official synopsis: “Oscar-winning director Roger Ross Williams brings Dr. Ibram X. Kendi’s New York Times bestseller to the screen with Stamped from the Beginning. Published in 2016, Dr. Kendi’s National Book Award winner chronicles the entire story of anti-Black racist ideas and their staggering power over the course of American history. Williams’ documentary adaptation uses an innovative animation process that blends live action with the art of the era to illuminate figures and moments both well-known and obscure, both historical and contemporary.

Netflix’s trailer for Oscar-winning director Roger Ross Williams’ Stamped From the Beginning features clips of female scholars discussing the connection between the United States’ history of racism and the history of power. The documentary based on Dr. Ibram X. Kendi’s bestselling book will premiere on November 10, 2023 in select theaters, followed by a release on the streaming service on November 20.

“When we started looking at historians and scholars, we came up with a long list. I noticed the pattern that most of the people doing the work around racism in America were Black women,” stated director Williams in an interview on Netflix’s Tudum. “I asked them in pre-interviews, ‘Why do you do this work?’ And many of them said the same thing — that they had no choice. This was their experience and their life. And if they’re going to dedicate their life to something, it’s going...

"I love all of the things that Blackness have given America, whether or not America acknowledges it." Ooh yes, say it. Speak it. Netflix has revealed an official trailer for a documentary film called Stamped From the Beginning, arriving in theaters and for streaming on Netflix later in November this fall. It premiered at the Toronto Film Festival, with stops at AFI Fest and Doc NYC. Directed and produced by Roger Ross Williams, Stamped From the Beginning is executive produced by Dr. Kendi and NAACP Image Award winner Mara Brock Akil. Oscar-winning director Williams brings Dr. Ibram X. Kendi's best-selling book titled Stamped From the Beginning to life, using vivid animations and leading female scholars to explore the history of anti-Black racist ideas. Described in rave reviews as "an important & eye-opening film that should be seen by everyone everywhere as it challenges conventional thought on the relationship between Black people and America.

The 2023 Montclair Film Festival, one of the Northeast’s top regional fall fests, announced Wednesday that the Nicolas Cage film “Dream Scenario” will serve as this year’s opening night feature, while new films from Alexander Payne, Roger Ross Williams, Todd Haynes, and Matthew Heineman will also screen during the annual event.

“Dream Scenario,” due out in November via A24, premiered at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival and won rave reviews for Cage. The feature will kick off the 2023 Montclair Film Festival on October 20 followed by a conversation with writer-director Kristoffer Borgli.

“Stamped from the Beginning,” Williams’ documentary, will serve as the 2023 Mff Documentary Centerpiece screening. That event takes place on October 22, and Williams will attend for a post-screening Q&a.

“The Holdovers” – Payne’s top awards contender following its splashy showing at the Telluride Film Festival and in Toronto, where it was runner-up for the TIFF audience...

It’s impossible to ignore that racism still plays an unfortunately large role in the world of professional sports. Most people are aware of the stereotype that white athletes are inherently smarter, while Black athletes are more physically gifted, but “Skin in the Game with Dr. Ibram X. Kendi,’ which premieres Wednesday, Sept. 20 on ESPN+, aims to demonstrate that systemic racism is embedded in many other facets of the world of professional sprots. You can watch ESPN+ with a subscription to ESPN+.

How to Watch 'Skin in the Game with Dr. Ibram X. Kendi' When: Wednesday, September 20, 2023 TV: ESPN+ Stream: Watch with a subscription to ESPN+. Sign Up Now$9.99 / month espnplus.com About 'Skin in the Game with Dr. Ibram X. Kendi'

“Skin in the Game” features the expert analysis of Dr. Ibram X Kendi, who was declared one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in 2020 for his work.

This festival season brought with it a pair of ambitious adaptations of scholarly texts. In Venice, Ava DuVernay premiered Origin, a narrative take on Isabel Wilkerson’s tome, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. The Selma director anchored her adaptation in a tender love story, using Wilkerson’s personal life to understand the intellectual and emotional labor supporting the book’s framework. And at the Toronto International Film Festival, Roger Ross Williams debuted his own film translation of an influential text on race.

In Stamped From the Beginning, Williams uses Ibram X. Kendi’s book of the same name to recast the narrators of Black history. The documentary, which will premiere on Netflix in November, convenes contemporary Black women scholars and organizers to synthesize and contextualize Kendi’s central thesis. The author makes the briefest appearances throughout the film, attesting to Williams’ mission to center Black women.

There’s a...

If your education was only gleaned from the American public school system, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and Rosa Parks may be the only Black historical figures you know. The limited overview of the Civil Rights movement and slavery is at stake when schools, government, and other authoritative bodies whitewash dark annals of the country’s foundation in today’s direction of banning the passage of the past to future generations. Yet Academy Award winner Roger Ross Williams inhibits America’s violent chapters, taboo portions, and past Presidents from being forgotten in his newest film, Stamped From the Beginning.

His adaptation of scholar Ibram X. Kendi’s book of the same name observes how America imbued concept of race from the 1500s to the present. He deploys a vast archive of past media (including snippets of Omar Little and Officer Alonso Harris reinforcing the criminalization of Black people) that degraded Black people,...

A vitally important and visually stunning new graphic novel, Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, adapts MacArthur Genius Grant winner Dr. Ibram X. Kendi's 2016 book of the same name. This new medium makes Kendi's acclaimed history book more accessible and digestible to a variety of readers.

Kendi is a National Book Award-winning historian and the founder and director of Boston University's Center for Antiracist Research. He worked closely with award-winning cartoonist and historian Joel Christian Gill to adapt Stamped from the Beginning into the graphic novel format. Their collaboration gives the critically necessary text new life in 2023 amidst continued violence against Black and Brown bodies across the United States.

Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America is an impressive and disturbing weaving of the United States' horrifically racist roots, the institutional and interpersonal racism still pervasive in American society today,...

This year's Emmy season has come and gone, and amongst the historic wins for Sheryl Lee Ralph, Quinta Brunson, and Lee Jung-jae, Netflix also took home the statue for Best Animated Program for the very first time. The streaming giant has been nominated in the past for "Big Mouth" and "BoJack Horseman," but it was "Arcane" that finally brought home the gold, and made Netflix the first streamer to ever take home the award.

This year's category was absolutely stacked, with "Arcane" besting the already Emmy award-winning series "The Simpsons," "Bob's Burgers," and "Rick and Morty," as well as the Chadwick Boseman-voiced episode of "What If...?" for Disney+. "Arcane" co-creator Christian Linke accepted the award during the Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards, delivering a speech honoring the video game world that inspired the series:

"Thank you for this. It's a big deal for us as we come from video games.