SXSW FILM FESTIVAL 2024 REVIEW! For those of us who’ve traveled abroad, it’s hard not to feel like a stranger in a strange land at times. Different languages, customs, and values regarding things we often take for granted can result in unintentional cultural clashes. Commonalities between cultures can and should inspire unity. This sentiment is at the heart of Derrick B. Harden and Crystal Moselle’s The Black Sea, a film that celebrates second chances in faraway places.
Khalid (played by co-director Harden) is a personable but disorganized man struggling to make ends meet in Brooklyn after being fired from a local café for consistent tardiness. Looking for his next gig, he encounters an older Bulgarian woman on Facebook who is told by a fortune teller in the film’s brief opening sequence that she “needs to find a black man” — presumably for sex. Khalid is more than happy to take her up on the offer to come to coastal Bulgaria, hoping his new sugar mama will help enrich his life — in more ways than one.
“…told by a fortune teller in the film’s brief opening sequence that she ‘needs to find a black man‘ — presumably for sex.”
Upon arrival, he’s dismayed to learn that she has suddenly passed away, and his master plan has subsequently been thwarted. In what initially appears to be the trip from hell, his passport is then stolen, stranding Khalid, the only black man in sight on the coast of the Black Sea. His efforts to find work take him to a restaurant, a marina manned by a mafioso-type character, and finally to Ina (Irmena Chichikova), an owner of a travel agency. Together, the two of them put their brains together and craft a delicious new treat utilizing traditional Bulgarian roasted peppers and a little bit of culinary savvy Khalid picked up in Brooklyn.
Harden and Moselle keep it light throughout, and they mostly avoid the standard narrative beats that would often come with a movie in this vein. We expect to see Khalid subjected to on-the-nose racism and even potential violence, but it’s never the sole focus of The Black Sea. Indeed, other than a few sequences that play on his status as the town’s sole black man, the bond formed between Khalid and the townspeople takes center stage. Of course, that a black American can succeed in Bulgaria and not America is perhaps the largest point of the film, throwing the largely defunct concept of the American Dream on its head. In this case, maybe race does take center stage, if not overtly.
It’s undeniably a cliché for a film to extol the virtues of vastly different cultures going all kumbaya in an exotic locale, but in The Black Sea, it never feels forced. Harden and Chichikova have tremendous chemistry for two performers coming from such disparate cultural traditions. They help elevate the film beyond what would otherwise be a staid travel film. Perhaps the best compliment that one can give The Black Sea is that it reminds us of being away from it all in a new setting — one that brings promises of a fresh start. Maybe we’ll all have our own Bulgarian Dream after watching this one.
The Black Sea screened at the 2024 SXSW Film Festival.
"…film that celebrates second chances in faraway places..."
