Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project (2023)

Celebrating the life of a towering figure can be a challenge to get right, and that’s precisely where this profile of poet, advocate and educator Nikki Giovanni comes up short. Writer-directors Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson earnestly but regrettably struggle to capture the nature and character of this African-American icon of literature and activism, whose 60+-year career has borne witness to the wide-ranging history of the nation’s social and cultural movements during that time. Giovanni’s take on these subjects has nearly always been radical and unreserved, with criticisms and commenta…