Directed by Salomão Abdala and André Abdala (also known as the Abdala Brothers)
Some language in Portuguese with subtitles
Culture Representation: The sports documentary film “2Die4” features Brazilian race car driver Felipe Nasr competing in the 93rd edition of 24 Hours of Le Mans in Le Mans, France, on June 14 and June 15, 2025.
Culture Clash: Nasr and his Team Penske colleagues experience various setbacks during the race.
Culture Audience: “2Die4” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of Formula 1 racing, but this tedious documentary doesn’t reveal anything new or interesting.
Felipe Nasr in “2Die4” (Photo courtesy of Abramorama)
Dull and very superficial, the documentary “2Die4” comes across as a semi-scripted infomercial for Formula 1 racer Felipe Nasr during his experience competing in 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2025. Formula 1 fans who follow 24 Hours of Le Mans news will find no suspense or surprises in this documentary. People who don’t know the outcome of this race before seeing this documentary might also be bored because Nasr gives robotic narration from a very cliché-ridden script.
“2Die4” is the feature-film directorial debut of Salomão Abdala and André Abdala (also known as the Abdala Brothers), who seem to think the movie’s racing cinematography alone should make this a good documentary. It doesn’t. With “2Die4” being released less than a year after the release of the 2025 blockbuster Formula 1 action flick “F1” (starring Brad Pitt), the time would seem right to have a documentary that is a counterpoint to the slick, manufactured aspects of “F1.”
Unfortunately, “2Die4” (whose total run time is 60 minutes) falls short in almost every aspect of sports documentary filmmaking. You won’t learn anything about behind-the-scenes dynamics at Team Penske, the team that Nasr joined in 2022. (The team drove Porsche 963s for the Le Mans race in 2025.) You won’t learn anything about the toughest location obstacles in 24 Hours of Le Mans. You won’t learn anything about Nasr, except how he looks during this racing period, how he reacts to setbacks, and how his narration sounds like it’s coming from a soulless drone. Some of the setbacks that Team Penske experiences during this Le Mans race include heavy rain and winds; at least one Team Penske car crash; and a malfunctioning windshield wiper.
At least the fictional racers in “F1” had appealing and entertaining personalities. Nasr comes across as monotonous and self-absorbed, with the personality of a toilet. When two unnamed fan boys (who are about 9 to 11 years old) approach Nasr together to ask Nasr for selfie photos, Nasr says yes to the boy who looks younger, but no to the older boy. Nasr’s excuse is that he has to leave, but it wouldn’t have been that difficult for Nasr to pause for an extra three to five seconds to take a selfie with the other fan.
Viewers of “2Die4” have to sit through voiceovers of Nasr giving himself generic pep talks, such as: “Breathe. You got this. It’s any time now. Stay confident.” When Nasr manages to utter any sentence that is more than six words, it all sounds so fake and contrived. In one of these comments, he says: “In order to transform myself into the wild creative that I am in the car, I have to tame myself to the outside world.” It’s all utter tripe.
British driver Nick Tandy and French driver Mathieu Jaminet are the other Team Penske drivers in this race. “2Die4” has some footage showing interior car camera views while Tandy and Jaminet are driving during the race. The documentary never actually shows Tandy and Jaminet on camera. And therefore, don’t expect any insights from Tandy or Jaminet in this one-sided documentary, which makes the movie all about Nasr.
When Nasr is on a break from the race, all the scenes of him are mind-numbingly bland. There’s a scene where Nasr has lunch with his father. This scene just has more boring, shallow and forgettable talk. In another scene, Nasr meditates after taking an approximately hour-long nap. The only time he seems to show any honest emotion (and it’s not a good look) is a brief moment that cuts off quickly in the documentary, when he is heard smashing something in anger in his hotel room after experiencing a major setback.
In the documentary, Nasr repeats (to the point of being irritating) how much he wants to win the race. Well, guess what? So does everyone else in the race. How is this supposed to be insightful? It’s not. And neither is this flimsy excuse for non-fiction filmmaking.
Abramorama released “2Die4” in New York City on February 20, 2026, with an expanded release in other U.S. cities over subsequent weeks.
Culture Representation: Taking place from 1952 to 1953, primarily in New York City and in Japan (with some scenes in Paris, London, and Egypt), the comedy/drama “Marty Supreme” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some African Americans and Asians) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: An American aspiring professional table-tennis player, who is about to become a first-time father, goes to extremes to travel to Japan, where he wants to win a table-tennis championship.
Culture Audience: “Marty Supreme” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, filmmaker Josh Safdie, suspenseful sports movies, and well-acted stories about obsessive ambition.
Pictured standing: Tyler Okonma (also known as Tyler, the Creator) and Timothée Chalamet in “Marty Supreme” (Photo courtesy of A24)
“Marty Supreme” is about an ambitious and arrogant table-tennis player, but the movie grabs viewers and never lets go, like a mixed-martial artist in a race against time. Timothée Chalamet gives a superb performance in this tension-filled comedy/drama. Don’t expect the movie to actually show a lot of table-tennis playing, although the scenes of people playing table tennis are have a certain amount of thrills. “Marty Supreme” isn’t about the technicalities of the sport or an in-depth look at the sport’s top players. This outstanding movie is more about desperation to be somebody “important,” while clawing and fighting against stagnant society conventions along the way.
Directed by Josh Safdie (who co-wrote the “Marty Supreme” screenplay and edited the movie with Ronald Bronstein), “Marty Supreme” had a surprise world premiere at the 2025 New York Film Festival. “Marty Supreme” is Safdie’s first movie since having a creative split from his previous filmmaker partner: his younger brother Benny Safdie. (Benny Safdie, who is also an actor and a film editor, went on to make the decidedly more low-key movie “The Smashing Machine,” a 2025 biopic starring Dwyane Johnson as mixed-martial artist champion Mark Kerr.)
Together, the Safdie brothers wrote and directed movies such as 2017’s “Good Time” (starring Robert Pattinson) and 2019’s “Uncut Gems” (starring Adam Sandler), which are the two movies that “Marty Supreme” will get compared to the most because all three movies feature a flawed central protagonist under extreme pressure to get something life-changing done in a time crunch. All three movies are loud, nerve-wracking, and set primarily in New York City. “Marty Supreme” (which was filmed on location in New York City) is the most creative and best-acted movie of the three, in addition to having wilder and more unexpected turns than “Good Time” and “Uncut Gems.”
“Marty Supreme” begins in 1952, with a seemingly ordinary scene inside a shoe store in New York City, where a restless 23-year-old named Marty Mauser (played by Chalamet) works as a sales clerk. Marty doesn’t like this job, but he needs the money because he’s saving for a trip to Japan, where he hopes to accomplish what he really wants to do with his life: become a world champion in table tennis. Table tennis (the formal competition term for pinng pong) is a sport that is mostly popular in Asia and Europe, but Marty wants to be the pioneer who makes table tennis extremely popular in the United States and in other countries around the world.
At the moment, Marty is stuck in a job, where the store owner/Marty’s boss happens to be Marty’s uncle Murray Norkin (played by Larry “Ratso” Sloman), who wants to mentor Marty to take over the business. Marty is a natural hustler and a very skilled salesman, but he has no interest doing any type of job except being a professional table tennis player. In the beginning of the movie, Murray has promoted Marty to store manager. It’s a promotion that Marty didn’t want or ask for, but it’s a promotion very much wanted by Marty’s jealous co-worker Lloyd (played by Ralph Colucci), who is very straight-laced and very much a follower of rules.
Marty lives with his single mother Rebecca Mauser (played by Fran Drescher), who is Murray’s sister. Rebecca has long since given up hope that Marty will lead a “normal” life. Her attitude toward Marty shows both resignation and frustration. Marty keeps a lot of secrets from Rebecca. And he mostly tries to avoid interacting with Rebecca unless he’s in trouble and/or needs money.
In one of the first scenes in the movie, Marty has a sexual tryst in a back storage/stock room of the shoe store with Rachel Mizler (played by Odessa A’zion), who’s about the same age as Marty and has known him since childhood. Rachel went into the store pretending that she accidentally left her old shoes there the day before when she supposedly bought new shoes. Marty offers to help her look for her old shoes in the back, where they have quickie sex among the storage shelves.
As time goes on, it becomes apparent that Rachel (who works in a pet store) has had a longtime crush on unattainable Marty, a “love ’em and leave ’em” type who doesn’t love anyone or anything more than himself and his passionate pursuit to be a world champion in table tennis. Rachel is unhappily married to a working-class guy named Ira Mizler (played by Emory Cohen), who seems to be aware of Rachel’s feelings for Marty, but they don’t discuss it. About four months after Marty and Rachel have their sexual encounter, Marty finds out that she’s pregnant. She tells Marty that he’s the father of the unborn child, while leading Ira to believe that Ira is the father of the child.
Marty becoming a father doesn’t stop his table-tennis goals. His biggest hope of going to Japan to compete in a world ping-pong championship is to be sponsored as the player representing the United States. The person he thinks is most likely to sponsor him is an affluent businessman named Christopher Galanis (played by John Catsimatidis), whose son 30-year-old Dion Galanis (played by Luke Manley) greatly admires Marty and speaks highly of Marty.
Dion is meek and seems to be on the autism spectrum. Marty takes advantage of Dion’s social awkwardness to manipulate Dion into setting up a meeting with Marty and Christopher, with Dion in attendance. Marty makes his big pitch to Christopher, who is unfamiliar with table tennis. “I’m in a unique position to be the face of the entire sport for the United States.” Marty pitches Christopher on sponsoring Marty like a stockbroker would pitch a potential client to invest in an “under the radar” stock that’s about to be the hottest stock on the market.
The pitch works. And with Marty getting a sponsorship deal (which covers his hotel, food, and competition costs), he’s now set to go to Japan, where Marty wants to defeat reigning ping-pong world champion Koto Endo (played by Koto Kawaguchi), who barely says anything in the movie. But there’s a major problem: Marty’s mother Rebecca, who was supposed to buy the plane ticket, used the money for something else because she didn’t believe Marty would actually be able to be in this competition. The rest of “Marty Supreme” is the beginning of even more problems that Marty faces and all the madcap misadventures and con games that he gets involved in along the way.
During the course of the story, Marty has a torrid and uneasy sexual affair with an unhappily married socialite named Kay Stone (played by Gwyneth Paltrow), who used to be a movie star in the 1930s, until she married a wealthy businessman named Milton Rockwell (played by Kevin O’Leary), the owner of the Rockwell pen manufacturing company. Kay, who is trapped in a marriage to a very controlling husband, comes out of retirement to do a stage play funded by Milton. Marty boldly pursues Kay after he sees that she and Milton are staying at the same hotel where he’s staying. Kay gives in to Marty’s sexual seduction out of curiosity, boredom and some genuine attraction.
For reasons that are shown in the movie, Marty spends a lot of time frantically trying to get money for a second trip to Japan. This leads to even more problems. And this time, Marty’s taxi driver friend Wally (played by Tyler Okonma, also known as Tyler, the Creator) and Rachel get involved. It’s an astonishing and treacherous journey that also involves a gangster named Ezra Mishkin (played by Abel Ferrara) and Ezra’s stolen dog: a German Shepherd named Moses.
In addition to being highly entertaining, “Marty Supreme” has excellent direction and screenwriting, as well as an unconventional soundtrack of 1980s music. (Alphaville’s “Forever Young” and Tears for Fears’ “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” are two songs that are prominently featured in the movie.) “Marty Supreme’s” talented ensemble cast members play each of their roles with great aplomb. A’zion gives a breakout performance as Rachel, who has many layers to her personality that are eventually revealed in the story.
The heart and soul of the movie is the flawed but fascinating Marty, with Chalamet giving one of the best movie performances of the year. Chalamet is also one of the producers of “Marty Supreme,” a notable cinematic achievement that will leave viewers breathless by the sheer force of energy displayed in the movie. The table-tennis championship is symbolic of something bigger. “Marty Supreme” is a frenetic and unforgettable journey showing Marty’s dogged and relentless pursuit of two things that people want, whether they want to admit it or not: recognition and respect.
A24 will release “Marty Supreme” in select U.S. cinemas on December 19, 2025, with a wider expansion to U.S. cinemas on December 25, 2025. The movie will be relased on digital and VOD on February 10, 2026.
Directed by Sam Wainwright Douglas, David Hartstein and Andrew Miller
Culture Representation: The documentary film “Luv Ya Bum!” features a predominantly white group of people (with some African Americans) who discuss the life and career of football coach Oail Andrew “Bum” Phillips Jr., who was best known for being thr head coach for the Houston Oilers from 1975 to 1980.
Culture Clash: Unlike many football coaches who used fear and intimidation in their leadership style, Phillips (who died in 2013, at the age of 90) was known for treating his football players like family members.
Culture Audience: “Luv Ya Bum!” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching documentaries about American football and football coaches who are sometimes overshadowed by bigger names.
Wade Phillips in “Luv Ya Bum!” (Photo courtesy of Blue Harbor Entertainment)
“Luv Ya Bum!” is a heartfelt tribute to NFL coach Bum Phillips, who treated his football players like family. This documentary includes an impressive array of interviews, great archival footage, and meaningful stories about his life as a coach. The movie is also a lesson on how he handled defeat with grace but also never lost his passion for being the best that he and his team members could possibly be.
Directed by Sam Wainwright Douglas, David Hartstein and Andrew Miller, “Luv Ya Bum!” had its world premiere at the 2025 SXSW Film and TV Festival, where the movie won the Documentary Spotlight Audience Award. The movie was written by Joe Holley. Dennis Quaid is the narrator.
“Luv Ya Bum” follows a traditional format for a biographical documentary, by mixing archival footage with footage that was filmed specifically for the documentary. Most of the exclusive documentary footage consists of sit-down interviews with people who knew Phillips or gave him extensive news coverage as sports journalists/commentators. It’s almost a “who’s who” of football luminaries from the mid-to-late 1970s, when Phillips was at his career peak as the coach of the Houston Oilers. The last 10 minutes of the documentary focuses on his legacy as the father of NFL coach Wade Phillips and grandfather of NFL coach Wes Phillips, who are both interviewed in the documentary.
“Luv Ya Bum!” briefly touches on telling Bum Phillips’ personal background before he became a football coach. He was born Oail Andrew Phillips Jr. in Orange, Texas, on September 29, 1923. (He died on October 18, 2013, in Goliad, Texas.) He got the nickname Bum from an early age. During World War II, Bum volunteered to serve in the U.S. Marine Corps, where he became part of a elite special operations team called the Marine Raiders.
In an archival interview with Bum, he says that his U.S. Marine Corps experience influenced him on how he wanted his leadership style to be and how he didn’t want it to be. Bum remembers how his Marine Corps leaders frequently humiliated and intimidated subordinates. Bum decided he wanted to have a completely opposite leadership style that would encourage and support the people who had to follow his orders.
Bum spent his entire career as a football coach. After being discharged from the U.S. Marines, he graduated from Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas, with a degree in education, in 1949. He was a football player when he was a student at the university. After his graduation, he spent several years as a football coach for high school and then as a football coach for universities throughout Texas. Bear Bryant Texas A&M University is mentioned as Bum’s most important coaching mentor in college football. Bum famously turned down a job offer to coach at the University of Alabama (considered one of the top football universities for decades) because he wanted to stay in Texas.
Bum was married twice and had six children. The documentary doesn’t go into too many details about his personal life. However, his daughter Susan Phillips is one of his children who is interviewed in the documentary. She says that although Bum was a loving father, it was hard on the kids for them to have to move around a lot because of the different football coaching jobs that Bum had in his career.
Susan says, “I think I moved 11 times by the time I was 18.” She also says that the family moved so many times, Bum often wouldn’t tell the kids that they were moving. She remembers that it wasn’t unusual for her to be called home when she was at school and find out when she got home that they were moving when she saw a moving truck at the house.
Bum got his first head coaching job for the National Football League (NFL) when he was promoted from assistant coach to head coach of the Houston Oilers in 1975. Bum replaced Sid Gillman, who quit the team in frustration, after just one year on the job, because he couldn’t break the Oilers’ losing streak. People in the documentary describes Gillman has having a leadership style that was like a dictator.
With Bum now in charge of coaching the Oilers, he brought a very different leadership style to the team. NFL fans already know that when Bum was coaching the Oilers (from 1975 to 1980), he took the Oilers to the AFC Championships twice (in 1978 and 1979), which was a remarkable comeback, considering the Oilers were considered one of the lowest-ranked NFL teams in the early 1970s.
During the Bum Phillips era of the Oilers, the fan enthusiasm reached a fever pitch. The team’s main color is blue. The Oilers had a fan slogan (“Luv Ya Blue!”) that was chanted almost like a chant at a religious service. Even when the Oilers lost the AFC Championships when Bum was their coach, the fans gave them a hero welcome back home to Houston, especially in 1979, when the Oilers lost the game after a controversial referee decision that invalidated a touchdown made by wide receiver Mike Renfro.
Renfro is one of several of former Oilers teammates who had Bum as a coach and are interviewed in the documentary. Other former Oilers team members who are interviewed include Dan Pastorini (quarterback), Earl Campbell (running back), Robert “Dr. Doom” Brazile (linebacker), Mike Barber (tight end), Elvin Bethea (defensive end), and Billy “White Shoes” Johnson (wide receiver). Barber remembers this type of pep talk that Bum used to give the team: “He never failed to end with this: “You just remember, guys, when you don’t think that anybody loves you, you just remember Old Bum loves you.”
The former Oilers players remember Bum generously inviting the players’ family members and dogs to be at Oilers practices, which was very unusual at a time when NFL practices were usually off-limits to most family members. The documentary shows footage of some of the Oilers with their sons and dogs on the football field during Oilers practices. And, of course, there is plenty of footage of the Oilers playing some of their most well-known games when Bum was their head coach.
Bum’s coaching style wasn’t just about giving his players positive encouragement instead of intimidation. When he was tasked with turning the Oilers into a winning team, he recruited from a lot of places that successful NFL teams weren’t really interested in recruiting, such as small colleges and amateur football teams. One of the Oilers’ most unusual recruits in Bum’s early years with the team was an Austrian immigrant in his 30s named Toni Fritsch, who didn’t have the physique of a typical football player, but he excelled as a kicker.
Bum’s son Wade Phillips made his NFL coaching debut with the Oilers. Wade and the former Oilers who worked with Wade say that Wade didn’t have it easy and had to prove he wasn’t just a nepotism hire. Bum was probably tougher on Wade than any other assistant coach that Bum had in the NFL, according to people in the documentary. Pastorini says that Bethea actually bullied Wade. Bethea doesn’t deny it and says he was hard on Wade because he wanted to make sure that Wade was tough enough to coach the Oilers.
Bethea, who was with the Oilers from 1968 to 1983, has high praise for Bum in the documentary and makes this comment about the Oilers during the Bum Phillips era: “We had a bunch of misfits. And he made a difference [with] the players on the field and off the field.” Bethea continues with a laugh: “I know that off the field, he saved a lot of people.”
Campbell says about Bum: “He was like the perfect dad that everybody thought they would love to have.” Pastorini also echoes the sentiment that Bum was like a father figure to the Oilers and other people associated with the team. The former Oilers quarterback also mentions how Bum convinced him to stay with the Oilers for one more year after Pastorini was ready to leave the team. Pastorini describes the compassionate conversation that Bum had with him when Pastorini made tough decision to leave the Oilers in 1980.
The documentary includes the controversial firing of Bum from the Oilers in 1980. Oilers owner Bud Adams fired Bum because apparently Adams didn’t like that the Oilers still hadn’t made it to the Super Bowl under Bum’s leadership. Bum’s dismissal from the Oilers shocked many people, including Bum. The documentary has archival footage of people’s reactions to the firing, including an interview that Bum did on “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.”
Campbell says in the documentary, “If Bud had left Bum alone, I believe we would’ve won the Super Bowl the next year.” Bum went on to be the head coach for the New Orleans Saints from 1981 to 1985, but that coaching stint didn’t and couldn’t recapture the magic that he had with the Oilers. Bum retired after leaving the Saints.
Other people interviewed in “Luv Ya Bum!” are several former NFL stars, such as Terry Bradshaw, “Mean” Joe Greene, Peyton Manning, Archie Manning, J.J. Watt, DeMarcus Ware, Von Miller, Aqib Talib and Gary Kubiak, a Houston native who was in high school when he met Bum and who went on to become coach in the NFL. Sports broadcasters and journalists are also interviewed, such as Michael Berry, Bill Worrell, Jim Nantz, Dale Robertson and Bob West.
Amy Adams, daughter of former Oilers owner Bud Adams, is also interviewed. And so is Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, who has this to say about Bum: “It was the personalities of men like Bum Phillips that gave me great motivation to be in the NFL.” Singer/songwriter Texas-born singer/songwriter Larry Gatlin, whose 1984 song “Houston (Means I’m One Day Close to You)” is featured in “Luv Ya Bum!,” is also interviewed in the documentary.
The documentary mentions that Bum’s heyday with the Oilers also coincided with a booming economic period in Houston, which was riding high in the late 1970s and early 1980s with the Houston Rockets (a National Basketball League team), the big business generated by the Houston Astrodome, the nightclub Gilley’s, and the popularity of the John Travolta’s 1980 movie “Urban Cowboy,” which was set in Houston. The Oilers craze reached such a peak that Oilers wide receiver Ken Burrough briefly became a recording artist, with the release of a 1979 novelty pop song called “Super Bowl Itch,” which is played in the documentary. The movie also has footage from the record release party for the song. (Burrough died in 2022, at the age of 63.)
Bum wasn’t a pushover, but his friendliness to rival NFL teams was unusual. The Pittsburgh Steelers were the biggest rivals to the Houston Oilers during Bud’s time with the team. Bradshaw (who was the Steelers’ quarterback during this time) remembers how Bum invited him and other Steelers for a gregarious and fun-loving gathering with the Oilers before the start of the AFC Championships in 1979, the year that the Steelers defeated the Oilers.
Bradshaw remembers Bum gave him a “beautiful” pair of ostrich blue cowboy boots during this meeting. And he says he’d never experienced this type of welcome from a rival team’s coach before or since. Bradshaw comments in the documentary, “If I could play for any coach in the NFL, I’d play for Bum Phillips.”
Bum Phillips’ football coaching legacy continues with his son Wade and Wade’s son Wes. Wade would go on to become a defensive coordinator with the Denver Broncos (from 1989 to 1992 and 2015 to 2016) and was a Broncos head coach from 1993 to 1994. Wade won the Super Bowl with the Broncos in 2016. Wade has also had coaching positions for other professional football teams, including the Dallas Cowboys, the Buffalo Bills, and the United Football League’s San Antonio Brahmas. Wes was a tight ends coach and pass game coordinator for the Los Angeles Rams, who won the Super Bowl in 2022. As of 2025, when this documentary was released, Wes is an offensive coordinator for the Minnesota Vikings.
Bum Phillips had a 2010 memoir (“Bum Phillips: Coach, Cowboy, Christian”), but “Luv Ya Bum!” can be considered a very entertaining and informative cinematic biography of this memorable football coach, who is described by some of the documentary interviewees as a “legend” and an “icon.” “Luv Ya Bum!” begins with archival footage of an interview that Bum did that best sums up his attitude about coaching and his time with the Oilers: “I was there for seven years, and it was the happiest seven years of my life—not because we won but the way we won, and the way the kids acted and the way the fans and players reacted.”
Blue Harbor Entertainment released “Luv Ya Bum!” in select U.S. cinemas on October 23, 2025. The movie was released on digital and VOD on November 25, 2025.
Culture Representation: The documentary film “She Runs the World” features a predominantly African American group of people (with a few white people) who are connected in some way to champion track and field athlete Allyson Felix.
Culture Clash: In 2018, Felix took a big risk in her career by taking on her then-sponsor Nike with public criticisms about the pregnancy clauses in Nike’s sponsorship contract and by becoming an activist for maternity rights for professional athletes.
Culture Audience: “She Runs the World” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of Felix and are interested in documentaries about athletes who became activists.
A 2019 photo of Allyson Felix, her husband Kenneth Ferguson and their daughter Camryn in “She Runs the World”
“She Runs the World” is an inspiring documentary about track-and-field champion Allyson Felix’s challenges in attaining Olympic gold medals and her maternity rights activism for sponsored athletes. More perspectives would’ve made this a better film. The only people interviewed in the movie are Felix, her husband, her parents, her brother, and a few past and present colleagues.
Directed by Perri Peltz and Matthew O’Neill, “She Runs the World” had its world premiere at the 2025 Tribeca Festival. Felix retired as a professional athlete in 2022, at the age of 36. The documentary mostly covers Felix’s life as a professional athlete, although there is some mention in the beginning of the film about her childhood.
Felix is known for being the most decorated woman in Olympic track and field history and the most decorated American track and field athlete in Olympic history. She’s won 11 Olympic medals, seven of which are gold medals. Felix has 20 career medals (seven from individual events and 13 from team events) from the World Athletic Championships, making her the most decorated athlete in World Athletic Championships history.
Early on in “She Runs the World,” Felix makes a statement that can describes how she’s been such a high achiever: “I like it when people tell me I can’t do something because I’m going to show you that I can.” The documentary shows that many times in her life, Felix proved her doubters and critics wrong. And she made some history along the way.
Born in Los Angeles on November 18, 1985, Felix wasn’t an athlete who had a parent pushing her into sports. Her parents Paul Felix (a pastor) and Marlean Felix (a schoolteacher) say that they weren’t very enthusiastic about Allyson’s interest in athletics, but they didn’t discourage her either. Paul and Marlean describe Allyson as a sweet child, which is why she had the nickname Shug, short for Sugar.
In high school, Allyson broke many national records. In 2004, a year after graduating from high school, she won a silver medal at the Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece. She was the first female track and field athlete to become a professional after graduating from high school, but she also still found the time to get a university education. In 2008, Allyson graduated from the University of Southern California, degree in elementary education. That same year, she won her first Olympic gold medal. In 2010, Nike became her main sponsor.
“She Runs the World” dutifully shows the highlights from the rest of Allyson’s track-and-field competitions. But many times, the documentary looks like a long promotional video because it makes Allyson look like she has a close-to-flawless personality. Just by the way she’s presented in the documentary, her biggest insecurity (or strength, depending on your perspective) is that she’s very hard on herself and always wants to be the best in everything that she does.
For example, when she won a silver medal at her very first Olympics in 2004, everyone else around her seemed to be happy and proud for her, but she admits that she hid her disappointment on camera. She says in the documentary about not winning a gold medal for her first Olympics: “I felt like I failed. I felt like I let the country [the United States] down.”
Jackie Joyner-Kersee, another Olympic champion in track and field, is one of the people interviewed in the documentary. Joyner-Kersee says she considers herself a mentor of Allyson, whom Joyner-Kersee describes as “very shy but very determined.” Joyner-Kersee further comments on Allyson: “She somewhat reminds me of herself.”
Also interviewed in the documentary are Allyson’s former coaches: Bob Kersee (Joyner-Kersee’s husband) became Allyson’s coach when she turned pro. Pat Connolly was Allyson’s coach in high school. Naturally, they praise Allyson too.
Even the love story of Allyson and her husband Kenneth Ferguson is presented as idyllic. They were friends from high school and a romance developed between them later. The couple got married in 2018. Ferguson seems content and secure with being married to someone famous. In the documentary, Ferguson says of Allyson: “I don’t see her as a public figure. I see her as just her.”
Allyson’s athletic accomplishments have gotten a lot of media coverage, so the documentary doesn’t reveal anything new in that respect. “She Runs the World” is at its most interesting when it covers the riskiest thing that Allyson did in her career: Speak out against her then-sponsor Nike and demand salary protections for pregnant athletes.
Prior to the changes that Allyson helped make in how pregnant athletes were treated by their sponsors, she and Joyner-Kersee say in the documentary that sponsors usually canceled or reduced payments for professional female-track-and-field athletes if these women got pregnant. It’s one of the reasons why many professional female athletes wait until they retire if they want to get pregnant. There was also no paid maternity leave for these athletes.
“Pregnancy in sport has always been the kiss of death,” retired hurdler Joanna Hayes says in the documentary. Hayes, who won a gold medal at the 2004 Olympics, comments on how being a professional athlete affected her family planning: “I wanted to have kids earlier, but I was afraid to do it.” Hayes says she waited to have kids after she retired as a professional athlete.
Allyson and her older brother Wes Felix (who became her agent early on in her career) candidly speak about the volatile contract negotiations that motivated Allyson to speak out about maternity rights for professional athletes. Wes, who is two years older than Allyson, says he’s always felt protective and proud of her. He says he became her agent because he felt he was the best person for the job.
In 2016, even after winning another gold medal that year, Nike reduced her pay by 60%, according to Wes and Allyson. “I felt discarded,” Allyson said of the pay cut that she thought was an insult to her, considering all that she had accomplished as an athlete. It’s not quite said out loud in the documentary, but the implication is that women athletes who get older can get more negative financial penalties than their male counterparts who get older.
In 2018, when Allyson got pregnant with her first child, Nike stipulated in the contract that if she didn’t make it onto the podium” (getting first, second or third place) in a major competition within eight months after giving birth, then her salary would be reduced by an additional 25%. Allyson told Nike that if Nike was going to give her that additional 25% pay cut, then Nike could no longer use her image in marketing campaigns. Nike disageed and wanted to be able to use her image in the campaigns even if she got that additional 25% pay cut.
The contract negotiations reached a stalemate. And that’s when Allyso decided to speak out. A turning point was her New York Times opinion-editorial essay, titled “My Own Nike Pregnancy Story,” which was published on May 22, 2019. In the article she openly gave criticism about discriminatory policies that major sponsors such as Nike have toward pregnant athletes and called for changes in contracts to have pregnancy/maternity rights.
The article opened the floodgates for more women and allies to speak out about pregnancy/maternity rights for sponsored athletes. But speaking out in the first place was a risk because Allyson and her supporters didn’t know what type of backlash she would get. Wes says in the documentary, “We didn’t have the words for what we were dealing with: maternity protection.”
In the end, Nike and other sponsors changed their policies to give paid maternity leave and other maternity rights for athletes. By 2019, Allyson decided to move on from Nike and opted not to renew her contract. And even though she made it onto the Olympic team in 2020 (the 2020 Summer Olympics were postponed until 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic), she couldn’t get any sponsors.
Wes says companies told him that they rejected Allyson because she was too closely associated with Nike. But were the rejections also because of her outspoken activism about maternity rights for athletes? The documentary lets viewers make up their own minds.
But true to Allyson’s nature, she turned an obstacle into an opportunity. Instead of feeling defeated by her lack of sponsorship, she decided to start her own athletic lifestyle shoe brand: Saysh. Tiffany Beers, a former Nike designer, became her business partner in this venture. Beers is interviewed in the documentary and talks about how Saysh defied the industry norms of making female shoes smaller versions of shoes made originally for men.
Allyson gave birth to her first child—a daughter named Camryn Grace—in November 2018 The documentary also includes family video footage of the ordeal that Allyson and her family went through when Camryn was born prematurely (at 32 weeks old) because of severe preeclampsia, which includes hypertension and organ dysfunction. Allyson had to have a C-section. Camryn (whose heart stopped a few times) was put in intensive care for a few weeks until she was ready to go home.
This experience motivated Allyson to become an advocate for maternity health care—particularly for black women, who are much more likely than white women to die in childbirth or from pregnancy complications. The documentary doesn’t show too much of Allyson’s activism for maternity health care. It’s one of the areas where “She Runs the World” seems to be inadequate. (Allyson’s second child—a son named Kenneth Maurice Ferguson III, nicknamed Trey—was born in April 2024. The documentary shows Allyson telling her husband that about this pregnancy.)
Although “She Runs the World” is ultimately a feel-good documentary, it’s a little too insular to be comprehensive. A broader perspective was needed instead of just interviewing people who’ve been close to Allyson. For example, one of the ways the documentary could have been more well-rounded is by interviewing at least one or two female athletes who don’t know Allyson but whose lives have been affected by pregnancy clauses in sponsorship deals. And at least one other sports agent should’ve been interviewed. Nike’s perspective is also left out of the documentary.
As it stands, “She Runs the World” isn’t as extraordinary as Allyson herself. The documentary did not need to be a tabloid-styled movie or a “tell-all” exposé biography. But for a documentary that keeps praising Allyson for all the changes she made to the sports industry, there are surprisingly no interviews with people outside of Allyson’s inner circle to talk about those changes. It’s a competently made movie but so much more could have been told that is not in this documentary.
DJ Khaled at the 2018 Billboard Music Awards at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas on May 20, 2018. (Photo by Todd Williamson/NBC)
With two prizes each, Roddy Ricch, Megan Thee Stallion, Chris Brown and DJ Khaled were the top lead-artist winners of the 20th annual BET Awards, which were announced on June 28, 2020. For the first time in BET Awards history, the show was an all-virtual event, and it was simulcast on BET, BET Her and CBS. Comedian/actress Amanda Seales hosted the event, which was pre-recorded due to the coronavirus pandemic causing the cancellation of large gatherings.
Roddy Ricch won the awards for Album of the Year (for “Please Excuse Me for Being Antisocial”) and Best New Artist. DJ Khaled featuring Nipsey Hussle & John Legend’s hit song “Higher” was named Video of the Year and tied for Best Collaboration with Chris Brown featuring Drake’s “No Guidance.” Brown also tied with Anderson .Paak for Best Male R&B/Pop Artist.
Drake was the top nominee at the 2020 BET Awards, with six nods. In the end, he won the award Best Male Hip-Hop Artist (in a tie with DaBaby) and the aforementioned Best Collaboration prize as a featured artist on Brown’s “No Guidance.” Megan Thee Stallion was named Best Female Hip-Hop Artist, while Megan Thee Stallion featuring Nicki Minaj & Ty Dolla $ign– “Hot Girl Summer” won the Coca-Cola Viewers’ Choice Award.
According to a BET press release: “The nominations are selected by BET’s Voting Academy, which is composed of fans and an esteemed group of entertainment professionals in the fields of television, film, music, social media, digital marketing, sports journalism, public relations, and creative arts.”
In the non-competitive categories, Beyoncé received the Humanitarian Award:, while the Shine A Light Award went to DJ D-Nice (Club Quarantine), Swizz Beatz & Timbaland.
Performers included Alicia Keys, Chloe X Halle, DaBaby, D Smoke, Jennifer Hudson, John Legend, Jonathan McReynolds, Kane Brown, Lil Wayne (who did a tribute to the late Kobe Bryant), Megan Thee Stallion, Roddy Ricch, SiR, Summer Walker, Usher, Wayne Brady and more. BET Amplified Artists, Masego and Lonr. performed on the BET Amplified Music Stage, a platform for emerging artists.
Internationally, the show was simulcast on BET Africa at 2 am CAT on June 29. The 2020 BET Awards will be televised in the United Kingdom on June 29 at 9 pm BST, in France on June 30 at 8:45 pm CEST, and in South Korea on June 30 at 9 pm KST.
Here is the complete list of nominees and winners for 2020 BET Awards:
*=winner
BEST FEMALE R&B/POP ARTIST
Beyoncé
H.E.R.
Jhene Aiko
Kehlani Lizzo*
Summer Walker
BEST MALE R&B/POP ARTIST Anderson .Paak* (tie) Chris Brown* (tie)
Jacquees
Khalid
The Weeknd
Usher
BEST GROUP
Chloe x Halle
City Girls
EarthGang
Griselda
Jackboys Migos*
BEST COLLABORATION Chris Brown featuring Drake – “No Guidance”* (tie) DJ Khaled featuring Nipsey Hussle & John Legend – “Higher”* (tie)
Future featuring Drake – “Life is Good”
H.E.R. featuring YG – “Slide”
Megan Thee Stallion featuring Nicki Minaj & Ty Dolla $ign– “Hot Girl Summer”
Wale featuring Jeremih – “On Chill”
BEST MALE HIP HOP ARTIST DaBaby* (tie) Drake* (tie)
Future
Lil Baby
Roddy Ricch
Travis Scott
BEST FEMALE HIP HOP ARTIST
Cardi B
Doja Cat
Lizzo Megan Thee Stallion*
Nicki Minaj
Saweetie
VIDEO OF THE YEAR Chris Brown featuring Drake – “No Guidance”* (tie)
DaBaby – “Bop” DJ Khaled featuring Nipsey Hussle & John Legend – “Higher”* (tie)
Doja Cat – “Say So”
Megan Thee Stallion featuring Nicki Minaj & Ty Dolla $ign– “Hot Girl Summer”
Roddy Ricch – “The Box”
VIDEO DIRECTOR OF THE YEAR
Benny Boom
Cole Bennett
Dave Meyers
Director X
Eif Rivera Teyana Taylor*
BEST NEW ARTIST
DaniLeigh
Lil Nas X
Pop Smoke Roddy Ricch*
Summer Walker
YBN Cordae
ALBUM OF THE YEAR
“Cuz I Love You” – Lizzo
“Fever” – Megan Thee Stallion
“Homecoming: The Live Album” – Beyoncé
“I Used to Know Her” – H.E.R.
“Kirk” – DaBaby “Please Excuse Me For Being Antisocial” – Roddy Ricch*
DR. BOBBY JONES BEST GOSPEL/INSPIRATIONAL AWARD
The Clark Sisters – “Victory” Kirk Franklin – “Just for Me”*
Fred Hammond – “Alright”
John P. Kee featuring Zacardi Cortez – “I Made It Out”
Kanye West – “Follow God”
PJ Morton featuring Le’Andria Johnson & Mary Mary – “All In His Plan”
BEST ACTRESS
Angela Bassett
Cynthia Erivo
Regina King Issa Rae*
Tracee Ellis Ross
Zendaya
Jennifer Lopez
BEST ACTOR
Jamie Foxx
Omari Hardwick Michael B. Jordan*
Eddie Murphy
Billy Porter
Will Smith
Forest Whitaker
YOUNGSTARS AWARD
Asante Blackk
Miles Brown
Alex Hibbert Marsai Martin*
Storm Reid
Jahi Di’Allo Winston
BEST MOVIE
“Bad Boys for Life”
“Dolemite Is My Name”
“Harriet”
“Homecoming: A Film by Beyoncé”
“Just Mercy”
“The Lion King” “Queen & Slim”*
SPORTSWOMAN OF THE YEAR Simone Biles*
Coco Gauff
Naomi Osaka
Claressa Shields
Serena Williams
Ajeé Wilson
SPORTSMAN OF THE YEAR
Giannis Antetokounmpo
Odell Beckham Jr.
Stephen Curry LeBron James*
Kawhi Leonard
Patrick Mahomes II
BET HER AWARD Beyoncé featuring Blue Ivy, WizKid & Saint Jhn – “Brown Skin Girl”*
Ciara featuring Lupita Nyong’o, Ester Dean, City Girls & La La – “Melanin”
Layton Greene – “I Choose”
Lizzo featuring Missy Elliott – “Tempo”
Alicia Keys – “Underdog”
Rapsody featuring PJ Morgan – “Afeni”
VIEWER’S CHOICE AWARD
Chris Brown featuring Drake – “No Guidance”
DaBaby – “Bop”
Future featuring Drake – “Life is Good” Megan Thee Stallion featuring Nicki Minaj & Ty Dolla $ign– “Hot Girl Summer”*
Roddy Ricch – “The Box”
The Weeknd – “Heartless”
BEST INTERNATIONAL ACT Burna Boy (Nigeria)*
Innoss’B (DRC)
Sho Madjozi (South Africa)
Dave (UK)
Stormzy (UK)
Ninho (France)
S.Pri Noir (France)
BEST NEW INTERNATIONAL ACT
Celeste (UK)
Hatik (France)
Rema (Nigeria) Sha Sha (Zimbabwe)*
Stacy (France)
Young T & Bugsey (UK)
Cynthia Erivo stars as Harriet Tubman in “Harriet,” which scored a leading 10 nominations in the movie and music categories at the 2020 NAACP Image Awards. (Photo by Glen Wilson/Focus Features)
The following is a press release from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP):
The nominees for the 51st NAACP Image Awards were announced today at a joint press conference with Derrick Johnson, President and CEO of the NAACP and Connie Orlando – Executive Vice-President, Specials, Music Programming & Music Strategy. The winners will be revealed during the two-hour live TV special airing on BET Networks on Saturday, February 22, 2020 at 8 p.m. ET/7 p.m. CT.
Netflix leads the television category nominations with 30, with an additional 12 nominations in the motion picture categories for a total of 42. RCA Records leads in the music recording categories with 14, followed by Columbia Records and BMG respectively with 7. Universal Pictures leads the motion picture categories with 15 nominations, and Penguin Random House has 8 nominations followed by HarperCollins with 4 in the literary categories.
“Representation across entertainment and the arts has profound meaning and unparalleled power to shape perceptions, influence culture, and galvanize communities,” said NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson. “This year’s nominees have conveyed a wide range of authentic stories and experiences that have resonated with many, and we’re proud to continue celebrating their outstanding achievements and performances.”
“This is a historic occasion for BET Networks, and we’re thrilled to be able to celebrate our network’s 40th anniversary in conjunction with this milestone moment of hosting the NAACP Image Awards,” said Scott Mills, President of BET Networks. “It is our distinct privilege to be able to acknowledge contributions of talent in TV, music, movies and literature and we look forward to celebrating these contributions next month.”
The NAACP Image Awards honors the accomplishments of people of color in the fields of television, music, literature, and film and also recognizes individuals or groups who promote social justice through creative endeavors. The Image Awards previously aired on TV One.
In previous years, Image Awards attendees included Oprah Winfrey, Will Smith, Taraji P. Henson, Viola Davis, Gabrielle Union, Kerry Washington, Anthony Anderson, Sterling K. Brown, Mandy Moore, Halle Berry, Common, Dwayne Johnson, Steve Harvey, Audra Day, John Legend, Lena Waithe, Tracee Ellis Ross, David Oyelowo, Laverne Cox, Octavia Spencer, Issa Rae, Trevor Noah, Terry Crews, Yara Shahidi, Danai Gurira, Jacob Latimore, Jay Pharoah, Jemele Hill, Josh Gad, Loretta Devine, Michael B. Jordan, Sylvester Stallone, Meta Golding, Michael Smith, Tyler James Williams, Ava DuVernay, Chadwick Boseman, and many more.
As previously announced:
Voting is now open to the public to determine the winners of the 51st NAACP IMAGE AWARDS by visiting www.naacpimageawards.net – Winners will be revealed during the 51st NAACP Image Awards telecast. For all information and the latest news, please visit the official NAACP Image Awards website at www.naacpimageawards.net or on Facebook at naacpimageawards and Twitter @naacpimageaward (#NAACPImageAwards).
About NAACP:
Founded in 1909, the NAACP is the nation’s oldest and largest nonpartisan civil rights organization. Its members throughout the United States and the world are the premier advocates for civil rights in their communities. You can read more about the NAACP’s work and our six “Game Changer” issue areas at naacp.org.
About BET Networks:
BET Networks, a subsidiary of Viacom Inc. (NASDAQ: VIA, VIA.B), is the nation’s leading provider of quality entertainment, music, news, and public affairs television programming for the African-American audience. The primary BET channel reaches more than 90 million households and can be seen in the United States, Canada, the Caribbean, the United Kingdom, and sub-Saharan Africa. BET is the dominant African-American consumer brand with a diverse group of business extensions: BET.com, a leading Internet destination for Black entertainment, music, culture and news; BET HER, a 24-hour entertainment network targeting the African-American Woman; BET Music Networks – BET Jams, BET Soul and BET Gospel; BET Home Entertainment; BET Live, BET’s growing festival business; BET Mobile, which provides ringtones, games and video content for wireless devices; and BET International, which operates BET around the globe.
Following is the complete list of categories and nominees for the 51st NAACP Image Awards:
“Queen & Slim The Soundtrack” – Various Artists (Motown Records)
“The Lion King: The Gift” – Beyoncé w/Various Artists (Parkwood Entertainment/Columbia Records)
“The Lion King Original Motion Picture Soundtrack” – Various Artists (Walt Disney Records)
“Us (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)” – Michael Abels (Back Lot Music)
LITERATURE CATEGORIES
Outstanding Literary Work – Fiction
“New Daughters of Africa” – Margaret Busby (HarperCollins Publishers)
“Out of Darkness, Shining Light” – Petina Gappah (Simon and Schuster)
“Red at the Bone” – Jacqueline Woodson (Riverhead Books PRH)
“The Revisioners” – Margaret Wilkerson Sexton (Counter Point Press)
“The Water Dancer” – Ta-Nehisi Coates (One World)
Outstanding Literary Work – Nonfiction
“Breathe: A Letter to My Sons” – Dr. Imani Perry (Beacon Press)
“STONY THE ROAD: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow” – Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (Penguin Press)
“The Source of Self-Regard: Selected Essays, Speeches, and Meditations” – Toni Morrison (Alfred A. Knopf)
“The Yellow House” – Sarah M. Broom (Grove Atlantic)
“What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker: A Memoir in Essays” – Damon Young (HarperCollins Publishers)
Outstanding Literary Work – Debut Author
“American Spy” – Lauren Wilkinson (Random House)
“I Am Dance: Words and Images of the Black Dancer” – Hal Banfield (Author), Javier Vasquez (Illustrator), (Literary Revolutionary)
“More Than Pretty: Doing The Soul Work To Uncover Your True Beauty ” – Erica Campbell (Howard Books)
“Such A Fun Age” – Kiley Reid (Putnam Publishing / Penguin Publishing Group)
“The Farm” – Joanne Ramos (Random House)
Outstanding Literary Work – Biography/Autobiography
“Free Cyntoia: My Search for Redemption in the American Prison System” – Cyntoia Brown-Long (Atria Books)
“Finding My Voice: My Journey to the West Wing and the Path Forward” – Valerie Jarrett (Viking Press)
“More Than Enough: Claiming Space for Who You Are (No Matter What They Say)” – Elaine Welteroth (Viking Press)
“My Name Is Prince” – Randee St. Nicholas (HarperCollins Publishers)
“The Beautiful Ones” – Prince (Author), Dan Piepenbring (Edited by), (Random House)
Outstanding Literary Work – Instructional
“Inspire Your Home: Easy, Affordable Ideas to Make Every Room Glamorous” – Farah Merhi (Tiller Press)
“Letters to the Finishers (who struggle to finish)” – Candace E. Wilkins (New Season Books)
“More Than Pretty: Doing the Soul Work that Uncovers Your True Beauty” – Erica Campbell (Howard Books)
“Vegetables Unleashed” – José Andres (HarperCollins Publishers)
“Your Next Level Life: 7 Rules of Power, Confidence, And Opportunity For Black Women In America” – Karen Arrington (Author), Joanna Price (Illustrator), Sheryl Taylor (Forward) (Mango Publishing)
Outstanding Literary Work – Poetry
“A Bound Woman Is a Dangerous Thing: The Incarceration of African American Women from Harriet Tubman to Sandra Bland” – DaMaris B. Hill (Bloomsbury Publishing)
“Honeyfish” – Lauren K. Alleyne (New Issues Poetry and Prose)
“Mistress” – Chet’la Sebree (New Issue Poetry and Prose)
“The Tradition” – Jericho Brown (Copper Canyon Press)
Outstanding Literary Work – Children
“A Place to Land: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Speech That Inspired a Nation” – Barry Wittenstein (Author), Jerry Pinkney (Illustrator), (Neal Porter Books / Holiday House Publishing Inc.)
“Hair Love” – Matthew A. Cherry (Author), Vashti Harrison (Illustrator), (Kokila)
“Parker Looks Up: An Extraordinary Moment” – Parker Curry (Author), Jessica Curry (Author), Brittany Jackson (Illustrator), (Aladdin Books)
“Ruby Finds a Worry” – Tom Percival (Bloomsbury Publishing)
Patrik-Ian Polk, Devon Shepard, and Alyson Fouse – “Being Mary Jane” (BET Networks)
Suzan-Lori Parks – “Native Son” (HBO)
Yvette Nicole Brown – “Always a Bridesmaid” (BET Networks)
Outstanding Writing in a Motion Picture (Film)
Chinonye Chukwu – “Clemency” (Neon)
Destin Daniel Cretton, Andrew Lanham – “Just Mercy” (Warner Bros. Pictures)
Doug Atchison – “Brian Banks” (Bleecker Street and ShivHans Pictures)
Jordan Peele – “Us” (Universal Pictures)
Kasi Lemmons, Gregory Allen Howard – “Harriet” (Focus Features)
DIRECTING CATEGORIES Outstanding Directing in a Comedy Series
Anya Adams – “GLOW” – Outward Bound (Netflix)
Justin Tipping – “Black Monday” -7042 (Showtime)
Ken Whittingham – “Atypical” – Road Rage Paige (Netflix)
Randall Winston – “Grace and Frankie” – The Pharmacy (Netflix)
Shaka King – “Shrill” – Pool (Hulu)
Outstanding Directing in a Drama Series
Ava DuVernay – “When They See Us” – Part Four (Netflix)
Carl H. Seaton, Jr. – “Snowfall” – Hedgehogs (FX Networks)
Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson – “Power” – Forgot About Dre (STARZ)
Debbie Allen – “Grey’s Anatomy” – Silent All These Years (ABC)
Jet Wilkinson – “The Chi” – The Scorpion and the Frog (Showtime)
Outstanding Directing in a Motion Picture (Television)
Codie Elaine Oliver – “Black Love” (OWN)
Janice Cooke – “I Am Sombody’s Child: The Regina Louise Story (Lifetime)
Kenny Leon – “American Son” (Netflix)
Rashid Johnson – “Native Son (HBO)
Russ Parr – “The Bobby Debarge Story” (TV One)
Outstanding Directing in a Motion Picture (Film)
Chiwetel Ejiofor – “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind” (Netflix)
Jordan Peele – “Us” (Universal Pictures)
Kasi Lemmons – “Harriet” (Focus Features)
Mati Diop – “Atlantics” (Les Films du Bal Presente en Co-Production avec Cinekap et Frakas Productions en Co-Production avec Arte France Cinema et Canal+ International for Netflix)
Cardi B at the 2018 American Music Awards at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles on October 9, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for dcp via ABC/AMA2018)
Migos at the 2018 American Music Awards at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles on October 9 , 2018. (Photo courtesy of ABC/Image Group LA)
DJ Khaled at “The Four: Battle for Stardom” Season 1 finale viewing party at Delilah in Los Angeles on February 8, 2018. (Photo by Scott Kirkland/Fox)
The following is a press release from BET:
BET Networks announces the first group of performers for the 19th annual “BET AWARDS” including Cardi B, DJ Khaled, Migos, H.E.R., Lil Nas X, Billy Ray Cyrus, Lizzo, Mustard, Lil Baby, City Girls’ Yung Miami, Lucky Daye and Kiana Ledé. Hosted by Regina Hall, the “BET Awards” 2019 will air LIVE on Sunday, June 23rd at 8 PM ET from the Microsoft Theatre in Los Angeles, CA on BET.
Additionally, the network announced the first group of presenters who will take the stage including Taraji P. HensonTaraji P. Henson, Lena Waithe, Morris Chestnut, Yara Shahidi, Lena Waithe, Morris Chestnut, Yara Shahidi, and Marsai Martin.
“The BET Awards stage has become synonymous with powerful and groundbreaking performances that are authentic and bold, celebrating the influence and power of black culture,” said Connie Orlando, Executive Vice-President, Head of Programming at BET. “We are thrilled to continue to be the launch pad and home for some of today’s most talented and inspiring voices, as BET continues to showcase the impact of established and up-and-coming artists, providing them a global stage to share their art and creativity.”
As previously announced, Cardi B leads this year’s nominations with a total of seven, including Best Female Hip-Hop Artist, two separate nods in both the Best Collaboration and Video of the Year categories, Album of the Year and the Coca-Cola Viewers’ Choice Award. Drake follows with five nods for Best Male Hip-Hop Artist, Video of the Year, Best Collaboration and the Coca-Cola Viewers’ Choice Award. Other leading nominees include Beyoncé, Travis Scott and J. Cole who received four nominations each, with Bruno Mars, 21 Savage, Childish Gambino, H.E.R. and Ella Mai each scoring three nominations.
The “BET AWARDS” 2019 will simulcast LIVE at 8 pm ET across seven Viacom networks in the U.S. including BET, BET HER, MTV, MTV 2, MTV Classic, VH1, and Logo. Internationally, the show will simulcast for the first-time on BET Africa at 2 am CAT on June 24th, followed by international broadcasts in the UK on June 24th at 9:00 pm BST, South Korea on June 25th at 9 pm KST and in France on June 25th at 9 pm CEST. Internationally, BET will honor Best International Act in-show, along with the fan-voted category Best New International Act and BET International Global Good Award during the live red carpet pre-show.
Connie Orlando, Executive Vice-President, Head of Programming at BET will serve as Executive Producer for the “BET AWARDS” 2019 along with Jesse Collins, CEO of Jesse Collins Entertainment.
BET.com/betawards is the official site for the “BET Awards” and will have all the latest news and updates about this year’s show.
ABOUT BET NETWORKS
BET Networks, a subsidiary of Viacom Inc. (NASDAQ: VIA, VIA.B), is the nation’s leading provider of quality entertainment, music, news and public affairs television programming for the African-American audience. The primary BET channel reaches more than 90 million households and can be seen in the United States, Canada, the Caribbean, the United Kingdom and sub-Saharan Africa. BET is the dominant African-American consumer brand with a diverse group of business extensions: BET.com, a leading Internet destination for black entertainment, music, culture and news; BET HER, a 24-hour entertainment network targeting the African-American woman; BET Music Networks – BET Jams, BET Soul and BET Gospel; BET Home Entertainment; BET Live, BET’s growing festival business; BET Mobile, which provides ringtones, games and video content for wireless devices; and BET International, which operates BET around the globe.
ABOUT “BET AWARDS”
The “BET Awards” is one of the most watched award shows on cable television according to the Nielsen Company. The “BET Awards” franchise remains as the #1 program in cable TV history among African-Americans, and it is BET’s #1 telecast every year. It recognizes the triumphs and successes of artists, entertainers, and athletes in a variety of categories.
ABOUT JESSE COLLINS ENTERTAINMENT
Jesse Collins Entertainment (JCE) is a full-service television and film production company founded by entertainment industry veteran Jesse Collins. For more than a decade, Collins has played an integral role in producing some of television’s most memorable moments in music entertainment. Collins has produced groundbreaking and award-winning television programming, including “BET Awards,” “Grammy Awards,” “Soul Train Music Awards,” “BET Honors,” “UNCF an Evening of Stars,” “ABFF Awards” and “BET Hip Hop Awards.” Collins was an executive producer of the hit TV series “Real Husbands of Hollywood,” starring Kevin Hart, and the critically acclaimed “The New Edition Story,” a biopic on the boy band that aired as a three-part miniseries on BET in January 2017. He is also the executive producer of VH1 shows “Dear Mama” and “Hip Hop Squares” with Ice Cube. Most recently, JCE executive-produced “The Bobby Brown Story.” The miniseries picked up where “The New Edition Story” miniseries left off and chronicled the talented but troubled singer’s exit from the popular 80s boy band through his solo success. It debuted on BET in September 2018 and was the highest-rated non-tentpole program on the network since “The New Edition Story.” Next for JCE is the second season of “American Soul” on BET and Netflix’s upcoming series “Rhythm and Flow.”
There’s an ongoing debate on how transgender people should be treated in situations where people are segregated by gender. Sports will continue to be one of the hot-button areas where transgender people are fighting for their rights. Unlike using a public restroom, categorizing a person’s gender in sports can affect their future, especially when money is involved (and it usually is). “Changing the Game” is a documentary that explores these issues, as the movie follows three American teenage transgender athletes who are navigating their way through a system where they are often mistreated and misunderstood.
At the time this documentary was filmed, all three of the athletes were in high school. Mack Beggs, who gets the most screen time, is a transgender male wrestler in Texas who’s forced to compete against girls. Beggs, who has been a state champion, also stars in the documentary short film “Mack Wrestles,” which is making the rounds at film festivals, including Tribeca. Sarah Huckman is a transgender female Nordic skier in New Hampshire. Sarah (who is Asian) is adopted, and her parents, Jen and Tom Huckman, are completely supportive of her. Andraya Yearwood is an African American transgender female track runner in Connecticut, one of the states that allows public schools to categorize students according to whatever gender the student identifies as. Laws vary from state to state in this issue.
Mack’s situation is complicated because he is taking male hormones yet competing against girls. The documentary includes commentary from parents who think Mack has an unfair advantage against the girls he competes against. Mack essentially agrees, because he wants to compete against other males. Meanwhile, Mack’s coach doesn’t seem to care about Mack’s gender, as long as he’s winning. The coach says, “I would never turn my back on an athlete,” but all the controversy over Mack makes you wonder if the coach would stand by Mack so strongly if Mack was losing most of his matches.
Mack is living with his grandparents Nancy and Roy, who have adopted him. His grandmother says, “I’m a hardcore Republican, but I don’t have a problem stepping on any toes for transgender kids.” Mack has a girlfriend who’s also very supportive of him, but he admits that he has bouts of depression and a past suicide attempt by taking sleeping pills. The documentary mentions that 40 percent of transgender athletes attempt suicide. Mack is also under a lot of pressure because he needs an athletic scholarship to get into the college of his choice, but he knows that the odds are stacked against him because he’s a transgender athlete.
Meanwhile, the documentary shows how Sarah has become a political activist for transgender athletes. Her advocacy had an effect on the New Hampshire Interscholastic Athletic Association’s policies for transgender students, according to Guy Donnelly, principal of Kingswood Regional High School, where Sarah was a student. Advocates for transgender athletes believe that transgender people should be accepted as transgender in all aspects of their lives—in other words, sports should not be an exception.
For track runner Andraya, the biggest supporter in her family is her single mother, Ngozi Nnaji, who says she’s so protective of her daughter that she almost feels like a bodyguard. Of all three trans athletes profiled in the movie, Andraya endures the most heckling from angry parents at the games. The documentary mentions a sobering statistic that African American transgender female students are five times more likely to be murdered than their peers.
Mack gets quite a bit of heckling too. He mentions that most of the verbal abuse and bullying he gets are from adults, not from other kids. It’s taken a toll on his mental health, and his girlfriend says that Mack has had a couple of emotional breakdowns, but he doesn’t like to talk about how much pressure he’s under. Mack says, “My relationship with testosterone is complicated. I wish I didn’t have to inject it.”
The most common argument that people have against trans athletes is that trans athletes have an “unfair advantage.” This argument seems to be used the most when parents think someone with a masculine physique is competing against females. When prize money and scholarships are at stake, it’s no wonder that the conflicts over this issue can get heated. Sarah admits that she often holds herself back in competitions and deliberately does not perform at her best because she doesn’t want to be a target for this type of “unfair advantage” accusation.
Andraya says she wouldn’t be on her track team if she didn’t have the support from the other people on the team. She gets some more encouragement when another African American transgender female named Terry Miller joins the team. In one of the movie’s most touching moments, Terry says that she was inspired to join the team because of Andraya. They naturally become very close friends.
Still, they have to endure angry outbursts from parents who don’t want them on the team, even if Andraya and Terry can help the team win in group competitions. During a track meet, a furious mother tells the camera that athletes like Andraya and Terry don’t have to deal with menstruation, so they have an unfair advantage. The menstruation argument is actually an insult to all females, because it wrongly assumes that females who are menstruating are physically less capable of winning an athletic competition against females who aren’t menstruating.
“Changing the Game” is a straightforward documentary that doesn’t use gimmicks or fancy camera techniques. The film is unapologetically rooting for these transgender athletes, but the filmmakers could have done a little bit more well-rounded reporting by interviewing more people involved in the schools’ athletic systems, such as more coaches, referees, recruiters and leaders of athletic departments.
Another area where the movie definitely need improving was in expanding its reporting on what is being done on both sides to address the legal issues in the key states where transgender laws are the most hotly debated. Showing Sarah Huckman’s activism in New Hampshire (a liberal state) doesn’t seem like enough to cover the lawmaking issues that should be addressed in this documentary. In addition, although high school athletes are the focus of this film, most of these athletes have plans to continue in the sport after high school, and they will probably be facing the same issues in college or wherever they plan to continue participating in the sport. Only Mack’s post-high-school plans were given enough screen time in this film.
Despite some of these flaws in the documentary, “Changing the Game” does a good job of humanizing an issue that many people want to dismiss as not relevant to their lives. The rights that transgender people are fighting for are civil rights that speak to us as human beings and how we treat each other. The rights aren’t asking for special treatment but to be treated with the same respect, dignity and legal access that cisgender people get for gender identity.
UPDATE: Hulu will premiere “Changing the Game” on June 1, 2021. According to a Hulu press release, “Changing the Game” will debut on Hulu “as a director’s cut with new footage and a new original song called ‘Chasing Dreams’ by Gozé featuring Old Man Saxon and singer/songwriter/trans activist Shea Diamond.”
The NAACP today announced that globally dominant pop culture icon Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter will receive the prestigious President’s Award during the 50th NAACP Image Awards. The President’s Award is presented in recognition of a special achievement and distinguished public service with previous recipients including Jesse Jackson, Lauryn Hill, Soledad O’Brien, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, and Muhammad Ali among others. NAACP President Derrick Johnson will present the award to Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter during a LIVE TV special on TV One on Saturday, March 30, 2019 from the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, hosted by Anthony Anderson. Newly announced presenters will include Algee Smith, Cynthia Erivo, Danai Gurira, Issa Rae, Jimmy O. Yang, John Legend, Laura Harrier, Lupita Nyong’o, Marsai Martin, Mike Epps, Regina Hall, Ron Stallworth, Sanaa Lathan, Stephan James, Van Jones, Vin Diesel, Viola Davis, and Winston Duke. They join previously announced presenters Chrissy Metz, Kerry Washington, KiKi Layne, Lena Waithe, Letitia Wright, Malinda Williams, Mike Colter, Roshon Fegan, Thandie Newton, Tika Sumpter, and Trevor Noah.
“The President’s Award is an honor we carefully bestow upon an individual, maintaining its significance and commitment to recognizing excellence in service that directly affects our community,” says Derrick Johnson, President of the NAACP. “Shawn Carter has been committed to shedding light on the issues that plague the black community including systematic racism and unjust treatment under the law, utilizing his global platform to create everlasting change. There is no better time than now, as we celebrate our 50th year, to honor him with this award.”
Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter is the first hip-hop artist to be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and also a 22-time GRAMMY award-winner. Outside of his musical achievements which also include selling over 100 million albums worldwide, serving as President of Def Jam Recordings, being co-owner of global streaming service TIDAL, and owning and curating “Made In America” festival, he also excels in his business ventures which include acquiring luxury spirits brands Armand De Brignac and D’usse and his role as majority owner in the 40/40 sports clubs. Carter also launched Roc Nation Sports in 2013, whose roster includes three-time NBA scoring champion and Golden State Warriors star Kevin Durant and New York Mets MLB All-Star Robinson Canó.
Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter continues to use his platform for social good, intertwining his art and activism, through the work of his Shawn Carter Foundation and serving as co-founder of The REFORM Alliance. He was instrumental in bringing to life “Rest in Power: The Trayvon Martin Story,” which shed deeper light on the impact of the verdict felt round the world; a mini-series on the tragic effect of solitary confinement as seen through “Time: The Kalief Browder Story”; and also the animated documentary short “The War on Drugs is an Epic Fail,” highlighting the unjust treatment of people of color, specifically blacks and Latinos, as it relates to drug related crimes.
Winners for the 50th NAACP Image Awards will be revealed during the live TV special airing on TV One on Saturday, March 30, 2019 at 9pm/8c from the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood. As previously announced, Congresswoman Maxine Waters will be honored with the NAACP Chairman’s Award and radio legend Tom Joyner will receive the Vanguard Award. In addition to the live telecast, TV One will also air the 50th NAACP Image Awards Tribute Special, sponsored by Toyota, immediately preceding the show at 8pm/7c.
The 50th NAACP Image Awards production team includes: executive producers Reginald Hudlin and Phil Gurin; director Tony McCuin; co-executive producer Byron Phillips; producer Robin Reinhardt; and executive in charge of production Rachel Frimer.
For all information and the latest news, please visit the official NAACP Image Awards website at www.naacpimageawards.net or on Facebook at naacpimageaward and Twitter @naacpimageaward (#ImageAwards50).
About NAACP
Founded in 1909, the NAACP is the nation’s oldest and largest nonpartisan civil rights organization. Its members throughout the United States and the world are the premier advocates for civil rights in their communities. You can read more about the NAACP’s work and our six “Game Changer” issue areas at NAACP.org.
About TV One
Launched in January 2004, TV One serves 59 million households, offering a broad range of real-life and entertainment-focused original programming, classic series, movies and music designed to entertain and inform a diverse audience of adult black viewers. The network represents the best in black culture and entertainment with fan favorite shows Uncensored, Unsung, Rickey Smiley For Real, Fatal Attraction and The NAACP Image Awards. In addition, TV One is the cable home of blockbuster drama Empire. TV One is solely owned by Urban One, Inc., formerly known as Radio One, Inc. [NASDAQ: UONE and UONEK, www.urban1.com], the largest African-American owned multi-media company primarily targeting Black and urban audiences.
For more information about TV One’s upcoming programming, including original movies, visit the network’s companion website at www.tvone.tv. TV One viewers can also join the conversation by connecting via social media on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook (@tvonetv) using the hashtag #ImageAwards50.
To give fans the safest, most secure and easiest way to buy and sell tickets, AEG, the world’s leading sports and live entertainment company, has announced that AXS, a leading ticketing company, has become the official North American resale ticketing partner for sports franchises and select venues owned or operated by the organization. Powered by AXS’ Mobile ID, a digital ticket technology, and FanSight, a purchase experience that includes both standard and resale tickets on one platform, AEG can now provide fans a single source for guaranteed authentic tickets for 30 of its U.S. venues.
“AEG is always looking to deliver the best experience for fans and we needed a partner that both understands the complexities of the ticketing marketplace and has the technology to remove friction from the ticketing process,” said Dan Beckerman, CEO of AEG. “AXS’ patented Mobile ID technology and the FanSight unified marketplace was the obvious solution to streamline the entire experience of buying, selling and managing tickets for fans and our venues.”
Through the partnership, AXS becomes the official resale ticketing provider for multiple AEG facilities enabling consumers to buy tickets with confidence for venues such as STAPLES Center (Los Angeles), PlayStation Theater (New York), Target Center (Minneapolis), and Sprint Center (Kansas City), Fiddler’s Green Amphitheatre (Denver), The Showbox (Seattle) as well as for the Los Angeles Kings and the LA Galaxy sports franchises, and dozens of other venues around the country. Last month, the LA Kings became the first AEG Sports property to utilize this platform.
“For the better part of a decade we have been a partner to some of the top venues, artists and teams around the world, helping connect fans with live experiences,” said Bryan Perez, CEO of AXS. “Now we further improve the process by making it easier for fans to buy, sell and transfer tickets for thousands of events at AEG operated venues. Our continued investment in technology and a superior consumer experience has put us in a position to expand our partnership with AEG.”
To fortify AEG’s secure sales environment, AXS’ Mobile ID technology will be rolled out to affiliated AEG venues. This will ensure fans can securely and safely buy, sell and transfer tickets without worrying about paper or PDF tickets that can be easily counterfeited. AXS’ Mobile ID also helps AEG better understand who is attending events, and start to create more personalized experiences for fans.
ABOUT AEG Headquartered in Los Angeles, California, AEG is the world’s leading sports and live entertainment company. With offices on five continents, AEG operates in the following business segments: AEG Facilities, which is affiliated with or owns, manages or consults with more than 120 preeminent arenas, stadiums, theaters, clubs and convention centers around the world including The O2 Arena, the Sprint Center and the Mercedes-Benz Arenas; AEG Live, which is dedicated to all aspects of live contemporary music performances, including producing and promoting global and regional concert tours, music and special events and world-renowned festivals; AEG Real Estate, which develops world-class venues, as well as major sports and entertainment districts like STAPLES Center and L.A. LIVE; AEG Sports, which is the world’s largest operator of sports franchises and high-profile sporting events; and AEG Global Partnerships, which oversees worldwide sales and servicing of sponsorships including naming rights, premium seating and other strategic partnerships. Through its worldwide network of venues, portfolio of powerful sports and music brands, AXS.com ticketing platform, AXS cable television channel and its integrated entertainment districts, AEG entertains more than 100 million guests annually. More information about AEG can be found at www.aegworldwide.com.
About AXS (pronounced “Access”) AXS is a leading ticketing, data, and marketing solutions provider in the US, UK and Europe. The company and its solutions empower more than 200 clients — teams, arenas, theaters, clubs and colleges– to turn data into action, maximize the value of all their events and create joy for fans. It is an enterprise event technology platform that services venues, promoters and sports teams; providing fans the opportunity to purchase tickets directly from their favorite venues via a user-friendly ticketing interface. AXS serves all phases of the event life-cycle beyond just ticketing, through its consumer facing website, AXS.com and the AXS App. Headquartered in Los Angeles, California, AXS employs more than 500 professionals in multiple locations worldwide, including Cleveland, Charlotte, Dallas, Denver, London and Stockholm. AXS Group, LLC, is owned by AEG, Dan Gilbert and TPG Capital, owner of Cirque du Soleil.
