BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions is the hypnotic and long-anticipated feature debut of Kahlil Joseph, a visionary filmmaker and installation artist known for his radical, genre-defying approach to Black visual culture. Structured like a concept album in 21 tracks, the film blends narrative, documentary, and archival material into a time-bending odyssey across 247 years of diasporic memory.
Set aboard The Nautica, a transatlantic cruise ship hosting a radical art biennial, the film follows a young journalist investigating an exhibition curated by West African scholar Funmilayo Akechukwu. As her investigation deepens, the past and future begin to collapse into one. Inspired by W.E.B. Du Bois’ unfinished vision for an encyclopedia of the African diaspora, BLKNWS operates like a cinematic encyclopedia of Black consciousness — juxtaposing historical figures and fictional storylines with YouTube clips, social media, television, and performance. The result is a kaleidoscopic transmission: urgent, archival, and alive with the phantom presence of ancestors and the promise of Black futures.
Grand Prize: Avant Garde & Genre, BAFICI 2025
Presented by
Community Partner
Arthur Jafa, Kaneza Schaal, Garrett Bradley, Raven Jackson, Dionne Brand
USA
2025
English
Flashing/strobing lights
Book Tickets
Credits & Director
Producer
Kahlil Joseph, Onye Anyanwu
Screenwriter
Kahlil Joseph, Onye Anyanwu Saidiya Hartman, Kristen Adele Calhoun, Irvin Hunt, Christina Sharpe, Madebo Fatunde
Cinematography
Bradford Young
Editor
Kahlil Joseph, Luke Lynch, Paul Rogers
Original Music
Klein
Kahlil Joseph
Kahlil Joseph is an acclaimed artist and filmmaker known for his visionary approach to storytelling through film and video installations. Born in Seattle, Joseph has directed music videos for artists such as Kendrick Lamar, FKA Twigs, Sampha, and Beyoncé, and his work has been featured in major exhibitions worldwide, including the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, the Biennale de l’Image en Mouvement in Geneva, and the Frye Art Museum in Seattle. His most ambitious and ongoing project is BLKNWS, a conceptual artwork and business that redefines how Black culture is experienced and communicated.
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
Silent Friend
In this entrancing reverie from On Body and Soul director Ildikó Enyedi, we are invited to contemplate several human specimens from the vantage point of a mighty Ginkgo biloba tree on the grounds of a German university.
Fiume o Morte!
The Croatian city of Rijeka rediscovers its own past in this delightfully unconventional hybrid documentary about Italian poet and proto-fascist Gabriele D’Annunzio, who seized the city known in Italian as Fiume in 1919.
The Art of Adventure
The unbelievable adventure story of how painter Robert Bateman and ecologist Bristol Foster drove a Land Rover from Africa to Australia in 1957, developing a love of nature to last a lifetime. An inspirational love letter to the adventure of life itself.
Bushido
An impeccable samurai (and "Go" expert), Kakunoshin is framed for a crime and forced into exile. Years later he stumbles across the true reason for his fall from grace, and sets about exacting his revenge...