How can Black voices across continents reunify in a world shaped by colonialism and exploitation? This is the central question posed by BLKNWS: Terms and Conditions, an ambitious, experimental documentary by acclaimed visual artist Kahlil Joseph (Lemonade visual album). Originally exhibited as a video installation, the film—which premiered after a fraught process and uncertainty—is a sprawling, 110-minute exploration of the African and African American (both to be referred to as only African in the rest of the review for unification sake) experience. With a cacophony of sound, image, and narrative techniques, it crams decades of politics, art, and activism into a singular, almost disorienting vision. Love it or hate it, BLKNWS: Terms and Conditions will undeniably be a conversation starter.
The film opens with a seemingly small gesture: the narrator picks up a book gifted to him by his father, a volume of the Africana Encyclopedia. This book acts as the backbone of the film, its pages providing the jumping-off point for a journey that leaps from historically-relevant African (remember, for unification) locations, to key experiences. It highlights events such as W.E.B. Du Bois’s return to Ghana to the looted artefacts, to the lives of Brazil’s Black stars, and much more. Without any new non-fictional interviews, the film relies on archival footage, reenactments, and an array of sources: YouTube clips, social media videos, and newspaper clippings, woven together with provocative techno beats and visuals. Occasionally, GIF meme reactions punctuate the montage, moments that drew laughter from the Sundance crowd for their audacious modernity.
BLKNWS: Terms and Conditions is not a traditional documentary; it’s more like an experimental thesis. As Joseph uses vibrant, chaotic editing to draw connections across time and geography, he delivers a pointed message about the interconnectedness of the African diaspora. One moment, we are immersed in Du Bois’s journey to Ghana, reminding me of his belief in education as a tool for racial uplift. Does the expansive knowledge meshed into this documentary also try to remind us that being fully aware (educated) of our past can lead to an uplifted interconnectedness amongst Africans? Maybe.
In the next moment, we’re with Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka, reflecting on the role of Christianity during colonial rule and his musings on Esu. We are also duly reminded of Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti’s forgotten place in modern Nigeria, as well as the exploits of Anas Aremeyaw Anas, a Ghanaian investigative journalist. Then, without warning, we’re swept into the Brazilian cultural touchpoints, celebrating Afro-Brazilian figures. The rapid shifts can feel overwhelming, but perhaps that’s the point: the Black experience cannot be neatly summarised. It’s messy, rich, and irreducible.
Somewhere in one of the heart chambers of BLKNWS: Terms and Conditions is the topic of restitution of stolen artefacts, cultural heritage, and dignity. Yet it goes beyond these material demands to ask a more profound question: How do Africans and their descendants reconcile with the past and with each other? This question becomes especially poignant when I remember tensions within the Black diaspora, whereby some people are not seen as Black enough or African enough. Our shared history—of displacement, exploitation, and resistance—far outweighs these divides. Perhaps Funmilayo Akechukwu’s “resonance field” alluded to in the documentary is this shared heritage, vibrating across oceans and centuries.
BLKNWS: Terms and Conditions feels almost deliberately confusing, especially if you’ve never had any studies in the sea of topics at hand. For better or worse, it demands full engagement from the audience. One of the film’s standout and most accessible sequences focuses on Du Bois in conversation with his Ghanaian driver, tracing his journey from America to Ghana with a series of questions posed by the inquisitive driver. While its dizzying pace may alienate some casual viewers, BLKNWS: Terms and Conditions will undoubtedly find its place as a key reference point in academic and cultural discussions. It’s the kind of canonical work that will inspire think pieces, college courses, and debates. And while it may not offer easy answers, it’s a powerful reminder of the need to keep asking difficult questions. My takeaway: by presenting this vast stream of knowledge, BLKNWS: Terms and Conditions tells us that as much as topics like loot restitution and slavery reparations are important, also pertinent to us as an exploited race is reconciliation amongst ourselves as Africans.
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