Black Mother

“One of the Ten Best Movies of the Year. Stunning.”

“One of the Ten Best Films of the Year. An astonishing film… it casts a spell from the start and is impossible to forget afterward.”

“This is filmmaking as baptism; there’s almost nothing else like it.”

"Gliding from color to black and white, from digital to analog, from grim realism to spiritual ecstasy, the film offers a song of praise to the island of Jamaica and a reckoning with its painful history and hard-pressed present."

"Stunning. Transfomative. Black Mother may be the most fearless film I’ve seen in a decade."

"An undeniably transcendental spiritual awakening in audiovisual form."

"Critic’s Pick! Black Mother announces itself as an evocation, invocation and chronicle of birth and life."

"The best documentary of the year! A combination of city symphony and verité intimacy… Confirms Allah as a dynamic emerging voice in the arena of nonfiction filmmaking.”

“One of the ten best documentaries of the year.”

“Gorgeous. A lush sensory experience. A dreamy portrait of Jamaica, Allah's mother's childhood home.”

“One of the most original cinematographers of the time. Allah also edited the film, and his complex sense of audiovisual composition—textural, tonal, thematic, rhythmic, philosophical—is as original and as personal as his cinematography.”

"Black Mother is the beginning of a brand of Black auteurism exhibited by Allah and his contemporaries."

"A visionary filmmaker. Dazzling cinematic poetry."

"Black Mother finds Allah doubling down on his established aesthetic to bold, hypnotic ends."

"A personal, radical, expansive portrait of Jamaica and its people… what distinguishes the film is Allah’s superb eye and talent for portraiture."

"In just two films, Allah has developed and honed his incomparable style, providing the documentary form itself with one of the most memorable, intense experiences in recent memory."

"Black Mother is a spiritual project, collapsing the beautiful and the profane."