This terrific documentary took me by surprise. I thought this was about someone named Nikki Giovanni who was trying to go to Mars. Little did I know, I’m an uneducated buffoon, and Nikki Giovanni is a civil rights fixture, poet, and all around amazing person. I loved watching her story, and I’m glad this is on MAX with audio description from Zoo digital. This was a strong year for documentaries, and even though this isn’t at the tip top of my list, it was placed quite nicely in a place where I actually could vote for it.

This film takes a look at the unapologetic pioneering life of civil rights and LGBT icon Nikki Giovanni, who apparently has the Biden’s cell phone numbers. At one point, she seemingly just casually talks to them as anyone would. Just old friends catching up. This isn’t a biopic, or a talking head documentary, but rather a voyeuristic look that allows Nikki to summarize her life in her own words.

Because of this, the audio description has a lot more room to develop than a lot of other documentaries where the talking is non stop. We see Nikki in so many different circumstances and situations during the film that we get a really terrific representation of who this woman is. It captures her in this moment, in this element, instead of trying to go full retrospective like a textbook educational documentary.

Nikki Giovanni is inspiring, and this year presented me with two civil rights icons I knew nothing about (the other being Baird Rustin), and made some terrific cinema about them. Just do yourself a favor and pretend this was nominated and watch it anyway. i do believe it made the shortlist, so it was one of the Top 15 documentaries of the year, it just didn’t make the final five. What a shame.

Final Grade: A