BLACK BY GOD: BBG documentary premiering at Hot Springs Film Festival

By Crystal Good, Black Business and Financial Literacy, Donate here.

I still can’t believe Stanley Nelson is an executive producer on my first film!

That’s significant because Stanley directed The Black Press: Soldiers Without Swords (https://www.pbs.org/blackpress/), the landmark documentary on the history of Black newspapers in America. As the Black press approaches its 200th year, it’s my great honor to enter this film into that legacy.

Black By God, a commissioned short documentary made with Firelight Media’s HOMEGROWN series (https://www.firelightmedia.tv) and co-directed by me and Ashley York, will have its world premiere at the 35th Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival, October 9–17 (https://hsdfi.org).

“I still can’t believe Stanley Nelson is an executive producer on my first film!”– Crystal Good, founder and publisher of Black By God

The film follows the evolution of Black By God, from me passing out papers by hand to exploring our place in the Appalachian media ecosystem. I hope it offers a more multiracial picture of Appalachia than mainstream media usually gives.

It documents some of the beautiful BBG team members and supporters over the years. It’s about my dad, Wes Armstead, who worked his way from janitor at a TV station to news director and gave so many of us our first jobs in media. And it’s about families, including mine: my boys Aiden and Myles carrying on the tradition of keeping the Black press alive, and the legacy my niece Azariah has inherited.

Thank you to Ashley York for your balance, expertise, and spirit of quiet tenacity, and to Firelight Media, the HOMEGROWN series, and everyone who has supported BBG and this film along the way.

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Firelight Media Presents
A Hazeltime Production in association with Black By God
BLACK BY GOD with Crystal Good and Azariah Armstead
Directed by Ashley York and Crystal Good
Produced by Crystal Good, John Fee, and Ashley York
Executive Producers: Stanley Nelson, Loira Limbal, Chloë Walters-Wallace
Supervising Producer: Nicole Tsien
Co-Produced by Emily Cooper, Susana Ruiz, and Huy Truong
Associate Producer: Weenta Girmay
Directors of Photography: Huy Truong, Bryan Donnell, Jonathan Schwarz
Edited by Lewis Rapkin and Omar Cruz
Music Supervisor: Myles Treaton Satterfield
Original Score by John Fee