New releases include short film starring POSE’s Angelica Ross and Tribeca Special Jury Mention LET THE FIRE BURN
“KweliTV is an exciting, affordable, and mostly accessible entry into the world of streaming international Black cinematic art”
– PC Mag
“KweliTV is Netflix for black people, by black people, starring black people” – TechCrunch
“The Streaming Service That Centers the Black Diaspora” – Black Girl Nerd
kweliTV, the ad-free SVOD service for global independent Black cinema, has released their September 2020 slate of new titles, including MISSED CONNECTIONS, a short film starring and executive produced by POSE star Angelica Ross, Tribeca Film Festival Special Jury Mention documentary LET THE FIRE BURN and French coming of age drama and New York Times critics pick ELZA.
In addition, kweliTV is now available on DistroTV, an independent free streaming television service catering to multicultural, globally-minded viewers in the US, Canada, and the U.K.
“The slate of titles released this month on kweliTV showcases the diverse stories that make up the global black experience-stories about our struggle, beauty and resiliency.” said DeShuna Spencer, Founder & CEO of kweliTV. “In a time when people are hungry for more substantive black content, I’m elated that we have a new distribution partner in DistroTV to further amplify the work of our 300+ content creators.”
“We’re proud to be working with kweliTV to bring their impressive slate of programming to DistroTV. We have a diverse, global audience looking for stories that reflect and celebrate their own experiences, and deepens their worldview,” said Navdeep Saini, CEO of DistroTV.
kweliTV is also available to stream via the kweliTV website, Comcast, Roku, Amazon Fire, AppleTV, iOS, GooglePlay/Android and Chromecast. The fast-growing service’s subscribers have increased by over 126% since June 2020.
Founded by journalist, filmmaker and entrepreneur DeShuna Spencer, kweliTV‘s diverse slate of films, series, documentaries and children’s programming showcases the rich history and diverse culture of the global Black community with new award-winning and film festival-vetted films and documentaries added the first of every month.
Full list of September 2020 new releases:
- AS ABOVE: Loosely based on the 2nd Law of the Universe; The Principle of Correspondence, “As Above” tells the story of The Earth Plane returning home, to find herself intuitively drawn to a presence she can’t ignore. Alone, The Earth Plane follows her instincts through a twisty windy hallway looking to connect an alluring call to her. Watch the trailer HERE.
- DREAMSTATES: Equal parts love story, road movie, and Americana, DREAMSTATES tells the haunting tale of two wayward souls discovering their love for one another in their dreams and reality while touring the United States with some of the most pivotal figures of the Afro-Punk movement – Sultry, sensual, and quixotic, an underground portrait of America: haunted and hollow. Watch the trailer HERE.
- ELZA: ELZA is a riveting, deeply personal story about the emotional journey of a young Parisian woman returning home to her native island of Guadeloupe. Bernadette has tried hard to give her daughter everything. She is thrilled when Elza, the first college graduate in the family, completes her master’s degree. But Elza breaks her mother’s heart by running off to Guadeloupe in search of a
distant childhood memory: the father she barely remembers. Watch the trailer HERE.
- HESAT & HAPI CARTOON SERIES: Join Hesat & Hapi as they learn their ABC’s, 123’s, Colors and more! Watch the trailer HERE.
- LET THE FIRE BURN: On May 13, 1985, a longtime feud between the city of Philadelphia and the group MOVE came to a deadly climax. By order of local authorities, police dropped military-grade explosives onto a MOVE-occupied rowhouse. TV cameras captured the conflagration that quickly escalated–and resulted in the tragic deaths of eleven people (including five children) and the destruction of 61 homes. It was only later discovered that authorities decided to “…let the fire burn.” Watch the trailer HERE.
- MISSED CONNECTIONS: Two strangers meet and form a bond at a festival, but they forget to exchange contact info. As they search for one another and through viral posts, they navigate their careers, lives, and society’s expectations of them as Black, female, and transgender. Watch the trailer HERE.
- PANAMA DREAMS: Panama Dreams transports us on the modern day search of the filmmaker for descendants of an ancestor who left Barbados in the early 1900s to build the Panama Canal – one of the seven wonders of the modern world. She uncovers the complex history of that migration and troubling issues of race and discrimination that faced the West Indians on the Canal Zone and their descendants to the present day. Watch the trailer HERE.
- SILVIA IN THE WAVES: Noa struggles to honor the identity of his recently deceased parent while his mother tries to uphold the appearance of a conventional family. Grief and fantasy entwine to reveal the complex relationship between history and erasure, identity and memory. Watch the trailer HERE.
- STREET FIGHTING MEN: In a rapidly changing America where mass inequality and dwindling opportunity have devastated the black working class, three Detroit men must fight to build something lasting for themselves and future generations. Shot over three years in the neighborhoods of Detroit, Street Fighting Men is a story of hard work, faith and manhood in a community that never settles for defeat. Watch the trailer HERE.
- THE DESTINY OF LESSER ANIMALS: A Ghanaian police inspector embarks upon a dangerous, crime-laden journey to realize his ultimate dream – to escape the ghosts of his past and return to America. Infusing the policier genre with West African cinematic traditions and a neorealist emphasis on everyday life, the film becomes the story of one man’s journey to find his purpose in the context of post-colonial Ghanaian independence. Watch the trailer HERE.
- THE LAST TREE: After growing up in quiet, rural Lincolnshire, teenager Femi struggles with unfamiliar surroundings and cultural differences when he moves in with his mother in London. Watch the trailer HERE.
About kweliTV:
kweliTV allows you to discover and celebrate black stories through curated indie films, documentaries, web series, kids’ shows, news and live experiences from around the world-North America, Africa, Latin America, Europe and the Caribbean. “Kweli” means “truth” in Swahili. Our mission is to curate content that is a true reflection of the global black experience. Ninety-eight percent of kweliTV’s films have been official selections at film festivals and more than 65% are award-winning. kweliTV providing more than 250 indie filmmakers of color across the globe a space to showcase and make money off of their content once they have finished their film festival run. For more information, visit: www.kweli.tv.
About DeShuna Spencer:
DeShuna Elisa Spencer is the Founder & CEO of kweliTV. She’s a former radio host and producer of emPower Hour, a show that examined social justice issues affecting people of color, on Washington, DC’s 89.3 FM WPFW. She is a Halcyon Incubator Fellow, a Voqal Fellow and a Google NexGen Policy Leader. Spencer was first place winner of the 2017 Harvard Business School African Business Conference Pitch Competition. In 2019, the Digital Diversity Network named Spencer the Innovation & Inclusion Social Entrepreneur of the Year. She’s an advisory board member of Full Color Future and the Multicultural Media Correspondents Association.
About DistroTV:
DistroTV (https://www.distro.tv) is a free streaming television service catering to multicultural, globally-minded viewers in the US, Canada, and UK. Satisfying the growing demand for premium video content in multiple languages, DistroTV delivers a broad range of premium video content from producers in North America and UK, as well as from a range of cultures around the world including India’s vibrant Bollywood content, Latin America, Chinese and SE Asian programming. With over 50 live/linear channels plus thousands of Video on Demand (VOD) shows, DistroTV connects with people’s passion points around Entertainment, Lifestyle, Sports, News, Documentaries and International Content in live, linear and video-on-demand formats. With a growing list of curated channels from leading brands as well as producers, DistroTV feeds the growing demand for content from every corner of the world. DistroTV is available on the web as well as Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, and iOS and Android devices.
DistroTV is the first direct-to-consumer offering from DistroScale, a technology company founded in 2013, known for providing a global clientele of thousands of media properties with the industry’s most comprehensive video platform for web, apps, and streaming. DistroScale is an all-in-one solution providing infrastructure, content delivery, curation, analytics and a full suite of monetization options. Video enabled by DistroScale reaches over 250 million visitors per month. The company is headquartered in San Francisco, CA. More information is available at www.distroscale.com.
