BLACK BARBIE

 

BLACK BARBIE

Directed by Lagueria Davis | 100 min | USA

Love her or hate her; almost everyone has a Barbie story. For filmmaker Lagueria Davis, it all started with her 83-year-old Aunt Beulah Mae asked a seemingly simple question, "Why not make a Barbie that looks like me?"

Black Barbie is a personal exploration that tells a richly archival, thought-provoking story that voices the insights and experiences of Beulah Mae Mitchell, who spent 45 years working at Mattel. Discussing how the absence of Black images in the "social mirror" left Black girls with little other than White subjects for self-reflection and self-projection, Beulah Mae Mitchell and other Black women in the film talk about their own complex, varied experiences of not seeing themselves represented, and how Black Barbie's transformative arrival affected them personally.

 

Preceded by the short film: KC

Directed by Mike Palmer | 4 min | Canada

Katrina paints canvases bursting with colour and expression, but what separates her is the ability to paint under pressure.