by Gabriel Ladbury Dos Santos
I had the privilege of attending the premiere of Black Is Beautiful: The Kwame Brathwaite Story at The BFI London Film Festival, an invitation of celebration from Time’s Up UK, the BFI and British Blacklist, and it was nothing short of inspiring. This documentary brings overdue recognition to a man whose artistry and activism helped reshape how being black was percieved and even how black people view themselves.
Kwame Brathwaite, together with his brother Elombe, co-founded AJASS (African Jazz-Art Society & Studios) in 1956, a collective that merged culture, art, music, and political consciousness. In 1962, from that foundation, they launched the Grandassa Models — a group of women who embodied a radical departure from prevailing beauty norms; all of which Kwame photographed.
What made the Grandassa Models so powerful was their insistence on naturalness — natural hair, unmasked faces, African-inspired style — in a time when mainstream media and society demanded conformity to Eurocentric standards. Their existence was a statement: you are beautiful as you are. The show “Naturally ’62”, conceived by Kwame and Elombe, became a pivotal moment — a fashion pageant turned cultural manifesto.
The film does beautifully what any good documentary should: it humanises Brathwaite. We see his aesthetic philosophy interwoven with his political convictions, and we feel the weight of the sacrifices (emotional, familial, financial) behind the public legacy. It shows how his photography was not mere documentation, but a catalyst — a visual language of resistance and pride that must be globally recognised.
What moves me most is that his art was not just about changing what people saw — it was about changing how they felt about themselves. It was about recovering dignity in a world that tried to deny it. The Grandassa Models, the images he produced, the events AJASS hosted — all of it offered visible proof that Blackness is not something to be hidden or altered, but celebrated in all its beauty.
In short: Black Is Beautiful: The Kwame Brathwaite Story is more than a film; it’s a reclamation. It makes you see, feel, and believe — not just in the power of one man’s vision, but in the forever-urgent mission of cultural justice.