Eight months after it won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, “Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project” has been officially picked up by HBO Documentary Films, which is buying U.S. and Canada television and streaming rights. Backed by Confluential Films and Rada Studio and directed and produced by respected veterans Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson (“American Promise,” “Stateless”), producer Tommy Oliver (HBO’s “40 Years A Prisoner”), and executive producers Taraji P. Henson and Codie Elaine Oliver, the film will also screen in the Spotlight section of the upcoming 61st New York Film Festival.
To qualify for the Oscars, the film will play in theaters this fall ahead of its 2024 debut on HBO and Max. Sundance always supplies a number of Oscar nominees in the documentary race and “Going to Mars” is a strong contender.
As innovative and unpredictable as its subject, “Going to Mars” travels through time and space, using intimate vérité, live poetry readings, and revealing archival footage to showcase the power and influence of idiosyncratic artist and social activist Nikki Giovanni, who looks back through turbulent decades of American history that she observed and survived, at the same time that she contends with seizures and memory loss.
“We believe that through this collaboration,” said Brewster and Stephenson, “that ‘Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project’ has found a home where it will shine and have a global reach.”
Co-founded by Guggenheim fellows and partners Brewster and Stephenson, Rada Studio pushes the conventions of form and storytelling by tapping into the legacy of the Black radical tradition and drawing from the pillars that define Black Atlantic expression. Rada Studio credits include Sundance Jury Prizes (“Nikki Giovanni,” “American Promise”), Canadian Screen Awards nominee (“Stateless”), Tribeca Grand Jury Prize for Best Immersive Narrative (“The Changing Same”), and four Emmy Award nominees (“American Promise,”“The Changing Same”).
Founded by writer/director/producer Tommy Oliver, Confluential Films is a Black-owned production company and financier devoted to commercially viable stories at the intersection of art, entertainment, and cultural specificity. Confluential had four films at Sundance 2023, including “Nikki Giovanni” as well as “Young. Wild. Free.,” starring Algee Smith; “Fancy Dance,” starring Lily Gladstone; and “To Live and Die and Live,” starring Amin Joseph. Past projects include the AFI Audience Award-winner “Juice WRLD: Into the Abyss”; the HBO documentary “40 Years A Prisoner” (TIFF); six seasons of the docuseries “Black Love”; and award-winning indies “1982” (TIFF), “Jinn” (SXSW), and Sundance Audience-Award winner, “Kinyarwanda,” as well as “The Perfect Find” for Netflix, starring Gabrielle Union.
