Indie filmmaker Crystal Moselle is deepening her narrative feature style with a personal story, blending the lines between truth and fiction with a cinema verité approach.
Moselle, who made her directorial debut with buzzy 2015 documentary “The Wolfpack,” which won Sundance’s Grand Jury Prize for Documentary, gained further street cred with her Gotham-nominated feature “Skate Kitchen,” starring Jaden Smith.
Moselle now co-directs “The Black Sea” with the film‘s lead star, rapper/musician Derrick B. Harden.
“The Black Sea” has an unscripted style while centering on Brooklyn barista Khalid (Harden), who upends his life to move to Bulgaria amid a catfishing mishap. The official synopsis reads: “What happens when a charismatic big dreamer gets stuck in a small town on the Black Sea? A Bulgarian fortune teller once said the touch of a black man will cure you. That’s where Khalid comes in, a charismatic guy from Brooklyn who embarks on an amateur gigolo quest in a small vacation town on the Black Sea. A turn of events leaves him stuck and penniless in a town where he is the only black man around. With no place to go, he begins to embrace the cultural differences illuminating a town steeped in traditions but also a love
for one of America’s greatest exports, hip hop. In his desperate efforts to get back home he is led on an
unforeseen transformative journey, creating connections and finding love along the way.”
Irmena Chichikova, Stoyo Mirkov, Samuel Finzi, Joanna Nordahl, Sai Banks, and Kaya Cometti also star. Bulgarian producer Izabella Tzenkova set out to also cast non-actors from Sozopol for local authenticity.
“The Black Sea” was inspired by director/star Harden’s travels to Bulgaria; he improvised the film about being the only Black person in a small town along the Black Sea in Eastern Europe, while the production team shot the film in 16 days.
Directors Harden and Moselle said in a press statement that the “thread of hip-hop running through the culture of a place that doesn’t have African Americans at all” was the genesis of “The Black Sea.”
“From the way they dress, to the music they listen to, even the tattoos; we saw one on an old
white oligarch’s stomach that said ‘Hug Life,’ a play on Tupac’s ‘Thug Life,’” the joint statement reads about visiting Bulgaria together. “This trip became the inspiration for ‘The Black Sea.’”
The feature premiered at SXSW 2024 and went on to screen at the Nashville Film Festival, where it won the Best Narrative Feature award. Metrograph Pictures acquired the distribution rights, with studio head David Laub deeming the film a “completely fresh, relevant, and poignant take on the fish-out-of-water story.”
Izabella Tzenkova, Kotva Films, and GiveThanks produced the feature. The executive producers include Andrea Leibof, Cameron Brody, Dana Høegh, Jonas Carpignano, Josh Peters, Robina Riccitiello, Ted Hope, and Ted Wright. Jackson Hunt was the cinematographer, with Anastas Petkov editing.
“The Black Sea” includes original music by lead star/co-director Harden, who makes his film debut. The score was composed by Charles Moselle.
The IndieWire review for “The Black Sea” credited Harden’s “shaggy charisma” for grounding the film.
“It’s a tale of a fish-out-of-water against a new world’s mistrust familiar in the history of movies about immigrants or people displaced, hanging their hopes on any local with a vague offer,” IndieWire’s Film Editor Ryan Lattanzio wrote. “‘The Black Sea’ does become a cinematic slam poem about how shattered dreams lead people to become castaways, or refugees, or immigrants, far from their place of origin.”
“The Black Sea” premieres November 22 in theaters from Metrograph Pictures. Check out the trailer, an IndieWire exclusive, below.
