Kahlil Joseph on BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions: "At a certain point, you realise that the history is fucked"

“The Smithsonian is out of control. Everything discussed is how horrible our country is, how bad slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been. Nothing about success, nothing about brightness, nothing about the future.”
Donald Trump

“Eight years ago you were an extremist if you protested being replaced by immigrants... now it is official White House policy. Never give up.”
Charlottesville Riot Organiser

I don’t know which is the most abhorrent but those recent comments by the President and one of those ‘very fine people’ he emboldened during his first term, highlight the attempts to erase Black history in the US, and signal to white supremacists that Trump has their backs.

“I’m in District 10 which is where most of the people of colour live in LA,” reports Kahlil Joseph, the Seattle-raised, Los Angeles-residing filmmaker whose debut feature, BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions, is part of the cultural fightback against Trump and his MAGA minions as they work their way through the Project 2025 playbook.

“Everywhere I go there are signs saying, ‘ICE Not Allowed’ but their masked agents are still grabbing people off the street and throwing them into unmarked vehicles,” the 34-year-old continues. “It feels a lot like what I’ve read about Germany in the late 1930s/early ‘40s. A lot of smart people who study that period have been ringing the alarm bells.”

History, tragically, seems to be repeating itself.

“All the stuff that is allowing Trump and his allies to do what they’re doing is the result of this intense residue that we refuse to clean up, address, correct, learn from, evolve out of,” Joseph notes before adding: “For black people, this is nothing new. In the ‘90s, you had this insane thing with Bill Clinton of ‘three strikes and you’re out’.”

Which had a hugely disproportionate impact on communities of colour.

“Yeah,” he agrees. “What’s happening now is just a different version of that.”

Starting life as a video art installation at the Vienna Biennale and newsreels that were shown in front of movies, the official blurb describes BLKNWS as: “A distinctive cinematic experience that mirrors the sonic textures of a record album, weaving fiction and history in an immersive journey where the fictionalised characters of W.E.B. Dubois and Marcus Garvey join artists, musicians, Joseph’s family, and even Twitter chats, in a vision for black consciousness.”

All of which is true but undersells Kahlil’s vision as he mixes archive footage with live action set on the Black Star Liner as it sails to Africa – look out for a brilliant turn from Black Panther star Shaunette Renée Wilson – and a pulsating soundtrack, which runs the gamut from The Moments’ lost (and now found) ‘60s soul classic, ‘To Be With You’, to Travis Scott, Future and SZA’s ‘Telekinesis’ collaboration.

Asked what music captivated him as a kid, Kahlil shoots back: “The first album I bought when I was fourteen was OutKast’s Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik. I also liked my parents’ music, which was stuff like Sade, Anita Baker and Luthur Vandross, and being from Seattle, Nirvana was huge for me and my brother. You talk about cultural impact, well, Kurt Cobain’s is still being felt.

“My dad was an entertainment attorney – he represented Sir Mix-a-lot – so music was a big deal in our family.”

Joseph wants his new film to inspire and is therefore delighted when I tell him that, as a result of their inclusion in BLKNWS, I rushed out and bought the Sun Ra And His Intergalactic Solar Arkestra’s Space Is The Place soundtrack and have the aforementioned W.E.B. Dubois’ The Souls Of Black Folk: Essays And Sketches on order.

“You’re diving into the deep-end with those,” he laughs. “Because of BLKNWS, I had to read a lot for eight years and got really deep into black studies. Two thinkers who were fundamental to my conception of things were Sadiya Hartman and Fred Moten. They really blew my mind. At a certain point, you realise that the history is fucked. It’s this incessant excavation of brutality and of insane policies, laws and alliances that exists to this day. One of my goals with BLKNWS was to not only make a diagnosis, but also to suggest some solutions.”

BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions

In 2013 and ’14 Kahlil presided over the making of Arcade Fire’s globetrotting The Reflektor Tapes documentary. The stop-offs included Régine Chassagne’s native Haiti where he saw first-hand how hard it is for countries to recover from decades of colonial rule.

“Haiti’s probably the ground zero of colonialism,” he avers. “The way Africa was carved up at the Berlin Conference makes me sick to my stomach – all those straight lines on the map. What France did in Haiti also nauseates me.”

After working as an assistant to Melodie McDaniel, a celebrated LA photographer and director who shot The Cranberries’ ‘Linger’ video, Joseph got to work in quick succession with Sofia Coppola and Terrence Malik on their respective 2010 Somewhere and 2012 To The Wonder films.

“It might sound crazy because of the commercial success they’ve had, but neither of them make movies in a traditionally Hollywood way,” he reflects. “They’re very different human beings but both lead with what’s coming out of their minds, not other people’s.

“I didn’t get to be in the edit with Sofia but I was with Terrence and it was a really profound experience. Better I’d say than film school, although film school has its merits.”

Joseph has also learned many a cinematic lesson from Malik Hassan Sayeed who was in Haiti with him and Arcade Fire.

“He came from music too but is also a massive cinematographer,” Kahlil says. “He does a lot of amazing videos and shot with Stanly Kubrick on Eyes Wide Shut. He shot Gattaca too and was my first real mentor before Melodie. He’s just done Luca Guadagnino’s last film (After The Hunt) and is shooting his new one as well (Artificial). His words of wisdom always sit at the top of my consciousness.”

Currently doing the film festival rounds – up next in October is the UK – with pay per view and streaming releases coming soon, BLKNWS also shines a welcome light on people like Anas, a Ghanaian investigative journalist who went to extraordinary lengths to get the story.

“You should totally show up to work dressed as a woman,” Kahlil says referring to one of Anas’ favourite forms of disguise. “There really is an extraordinary cast of characters in the film.”

Before embarking on his BLKNWS odyssey, Joseph hooked up in 2013 with a young LA rapper soon to become hip hop royalty.

“Kendrick Lamar and I got together at the very beginning of both our careers,” he explains. “Him and I had been trying to work together for a while and then Good Kid, M.A.A.D City came out. We tried going the traditional route through his record label. I’d write these treatments for his singles and for one reason or another they kept rejecting my ideas.

“Then Kanye asked if Kendrick would open up for him on tour. Kendrick had never been on tour before, so I got a call from his manager saying, ‘I think I’ve finally found an opportunity for you guys to collaborate. Will you creative direct our concert?’ I was like, ‘I’ve never created a live show before!’ Anyway, I went to the part of LA he’s from, Compton, and filmed.

“Because I’d listened to the album so much, I was able to map it out in a way that felt intuitive. They ended up using those visuals really effectively on that first tour, and there are still echoes of them when he plays live now with those massive screens all around him.”

Did he have any idea then that Kendrick would go on to become the first musician outside of the classical and jazz genres to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music?

“I would not have guessed that but the Pulitzer Prize needs Kendrick Lamar more than he needs them,” his friend maintains.

Twelve months after wrapping a subsequent Good Kid, M.A.A.D City short, he found himself working with FKA twigs on her ‘Video Girl’ promo.

“She was a huge star at that point and I think dating Robert Pattinson,” he recalls. “At the time I hadn’t worked with a female artist, so I reached out to her manager and they were really open to my ideas. She was super-busy but happened to be in LA, so we made something that was fun and not overthought.”

Having established his filmic credentials, Kahlil was asked to direct Beyoncé’s 2016 Lemonade visual album and then did the honours on her next three music videos – ‘Love Drought’, ‘Sorry’ and ‘All Night’.

“I had known her professionally since 2011,” he’s previously said of their work together. “When I got the call that led to Lemonade, she was going through something, she wanted to try to figure something out. We developed Lemonade at the Underground Museum (the LA art space Joseph co-founded with his late brother Noah) and I showed her m.A.A.d. on a TV screen – she hadn’t seen it yet.”

While Kahlil’s attentions increasingly became focused on BLKNEWS: Terms & Conditions, he found time in 2023 to work on Circus Maximus, Travis Scott’s kaleidoscopic examination of the human condition.

“I was a sort of spiritual adviser on that,” he smiles. “Travis wanted me to just be there and help figure out all these ideas he had in his head. I was in Italy with him, so there was a bit of a holiday vibe.”

What comes next?

“I’ve made my first major feature-film and I have the bug now,” Kahlil concludes. “Maybe it’s a combination of politics and technology, but Hollywood is changing and I like that I can be part of the evolution.”

• The 69th BFI London Film Festival takes place from October 8-19 in London and across the UK. Tickets go on general sale on September 16. bfi.org.uk/lff