EXCLUSIVE: Seventeen-time Grammy-winning singer-songwriter and producer Alicia Keys and Grammy -winning producer and recording artist Kasseem “Swizz Beatz” Dean have boarded the Wayfarer Studios, Misfits Entertainment and Mediawan documentary, Black Is Beautiful: The Kwame Brathwaite Story, as EP.
The news comes in the wake of the pic’s sold-out premiere at the BFI London Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award for Best British Discovery, followed by its US premiere at DOC NYC. The docu also just won Best Documentary Feature at this year’s 34th Annual Pan African Film Festival in Los Angeles.
Directed by Yemi Bamiro, Black Is Beautiful: The Kwame Brathwaite Story follows the life of photographer and activist Kwame Brathwaite, who helped ignite the transformative “Black Is Beautiful” movement that reshaped visual culture and Black identity. Starting from Harlem in the 1950’s and working until his death in 2023, Brathwaite took half a million photos including many of “regular” people on the street but also thousands of intimate and unexpected photos of stars including Stevie Wonder, Muhammad Ali, Marvin Gaye, Roberta Flack, Nina Simone, and the Jackson Five.
Brathwaite’s photography captured pivotal moments in history throughout fashion, activism, music, and art in a career that spanned more than six decades.
Keys and Dean join Wayfarer Studios’ CEO Jamey Heath and Misfits Entertainment’s Andee Ryder as Executive Producers alongside Robin Bronk for The Creative Coalition and Kwame S Brathwaite and Robynn Brathwaite on behalf of The Kwame Brathwaite Archive. Producers include Andrew Calof on behalf Wayfarer Studios, Joanna Boateng, Ian Bonhôte and Lizzie Gillett for Misfits, Mediawan Rights and Entourage Media.
UTA are repping the film for sales in the US and Canada, and Mediawan Rights for the rest of the world.
English (US) ·