Here’s an update on a feature project we first alerted you to in late 2012, when it successfully completed a Kickstarter campaign, raising over $10,000 for production. It’s one of two feature documentaries we are aware of that are in the works on the contributions black people have made to science (whether fact or fiction). This one is on science fact; the other, “Invisible Universe: A History of Blackness in Speculative Fiction” from director M. Asli Dukan, focuses on science fiction.
Since we featured their 2012 Kickstarter campaign, the filmmakers – director/writer/producer Dr. Jarita Holbrook, director/writer Kelvin Phillips, and producer Carla L. Jackson – have been hard at work, traveling the world, and shooting footage for the documentary – one that, as I said in 2012, was definitely worth contributing your dollars to, especially as we frequently lament the lack of diverse media representations of real-life black adult male figures in *favorable* positions that young black boys especially can admire and emulate.
Production is now complete, after the filmmakers and their subjects traveled to Tokyo, Japan; Cairns, Australia; Tucson AZ; and Melbourne, FL, and we’ve been informed that the film is set to make its world premiere at the 7th Annual Art of Brooklyn Film Festival which runs from June 3-11, 2017
Titled “Black Suns: An Astrophysics Adventure,” the feature-length documentary is describes the project as follows: “A documentary about chasing eclipses and science dreams, chronicles the lives of two globe-trotting astrophysicists, Dr. Alphonse Sterling and Dr. Hakeem Oluseyi, as they follow/document the two solar eclipses that occurred in 2012: Dr. Alphonse Sterling (http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/people/sterling/) of the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, currently stationed in Japan: a man who had early success in the U.S., but left his home country to further cultivate his wide-ranging interests; and Dr. Hakeem Oluseyi (http://www.fit.edu/faculty/profiles/profile.php?value=433) of the Physics & Space Sciences department at the Florida Institute of Technology: a scientist who beat all the odds — poverty, homelessness, single parent, poor early education — to get to where he is today. ‘Black Suns’ explores how and why the two men became scientists, their opposing paths and personalities, their struggles as minorities in a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) field, and their noteworthy accomplishments to date.”
The documentary’s world premiere screening happens on Friday, June 9, 2017, 8:00 PM at the 7th Annual Art of Brooklyn Film Festival in Brooklyn, NY. The screening will be preceded by a handful of short films. For location and ticket information, click here.
A trailer for the film follows:
