Picture, Courtesy, Tribeca Festival 2024
BLACK TABLE caught me off guard. I was swept up into the film so fast that I fumbled and stumbled shifting into reviewer mode. It took 30 minutes before I stopped swallowing and gulping scenes down, and a measure of surcease was able to settle in. I was empathizing and sympathizing and identifying and bonding with characters pouring out their hearts and souls before I was really ready.
In reviewer mode I can resist or at least be aware of or adjust for visceral impulses and flourishes that can influence what I’m seeing or I think I’m seeing on screen – and, of course, what I eventually write. Because the next public screening is tomorrow, June 12, I want readers of the WORD to know that I rate the film a Must-See even though I haven’t assessed it like I usually do because, again, I need time to gather my thoughts.
Potential audience members check out movie reviews to know if they should fork over the bucks. So, for this movie, yeah, fork it over, that’s what I’m saying, though I just can’t dish in this piece about directing, plot and cinematography and other topics, matters of filmmaking lore in this Part 1 article. Yes, I am contacting the White House about this movie! It needs to see this movie if not invite the cast and crew for a visit.
I’m Shouting Out to President to see BLACK TABLE as soon as he can.
Succinct Synopsis
“The class of 1997 was the largest class of Black students at Yale in the 1990s,” Fariday Gbadamosi of the 2024 Tribeca Festival staff writes in a synoptic Tribeca Festival news media advance about this cinematic gem, “and with them came a new generation of students who would navigate the hallowed halls of the Ivy League institution and confront the many ways it was not fully prepared for them. Black Table became their refuge, an attempt to carve out space of their own.”
They did more, this reviewer-reader believes, than just carve out space, meet, chat, share as Gbadamosi writes in her news advance. I prefer “Transcendental Sanctuary” over refuge, considering the microaggressions and macroaggressions that I believe were the bitter experiences of Blacks portrayed in the documentary. I can’t imagine them not experiencing the aggressions. I’m surprised that there were no incidents of righteous self-defense fisticuffs included in the film.
I admit I’m engaging in poetic licensing and what I regard as reasonable embellishing when I speculate about Blacks and People of Color not portrayed nor featured nor referred to in the film yet who were around on campuses around the country at the same time as the group shown in the portrait above. Thus Black Table was more than just a physical meeting place.
Directors John James’s and Bill Mack’s 93–minute gem should be considered a top contender for Shout Out! Documentary of the Year. They’re BLACK TABLE should be expected to generate talk and discussion as word of mouth spreads after the 2024 Tribeca Festival wraps June 16.
The core of the festival program is its main slate of feature and short films, highlighting politically, culturally and socially relevant films from diverse storytellers.
BLACK TABLE
Director: John Antonio James, Bill Mack
Producers: Katie Taber, John Antonio James, Bill Mack
Executive Producers: Luis A. Miranda, Michael Stolper, Sam Pollard, Geeta Gandbhir, Alisa Payne
Cast: Imani Perry, Wesley Morris, Sheldon Gilbert, Aimee Allen, Patricia J. Williams, Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum, Neal Katyal
World Premiere – Saturday, June 8 at 8:30 PM ET – SVA Theater, 333 W 23rd St
Press/Industry Screening – Sunday, June 9 at 9:15 AM ET, AMC 19th St. East 6, 890 Broadway
Sunday, June 9th at 11:15 AM ET – Village East by Angelika, 181-189 2nd Ave
Wednesday, June 12 at 2:15 PM ET – Village East by Angelika, 181-189 2nd Ave
Press/Industry Screening – Thursday, June 13th at 2:15 PM ET, AMC 19th St. East 6, 890 Broadway
Publisher, Editor, Reviewer Gregg W. Morris