 and multi-faceted musical artist Derrick B. Hardin){kind=link}
The Black Sea, from award-winning filmmaker Crystal Moselle (The Wolfpack) and multi-faceted musical artist Derrick B. Hardin (Dear Derrick), takes inspiration from their travels on the Bulgarian coast to deliver a warm and engaging fish-out-of-water tale fueled by great music and Hardin’s considerable charisma. Shot without a script and with a cast made up largely of non-actors, Moselle puts her documentary chops to good use wrangling the story into shape.
The film opens with a bad omen. Raya has just been told by a fortune teller that her illness can only be cured by the touch of a black man. They’re in short supply in her Bulgarian resort town, so she does the sensible thing and finds one on Facebook. Enter Khalid (played by co-director Hardin), who is only too eager to leave his Brooklyn barista life behind for the promise of Eastern European adventure… and ten grand of course.
Khalid’s arrival in the beach town of Sozopol is immediately joyful, with Moselle and Hardin’s affection for the region leaping off the screen, as he downright struts to meet his new Bulgarian sugar mama. The catch? She’s dead. Arriving at her house only to be met by her surly grieving son, he’s left high and dry with no cash, and no way to get home. Finding refuge overnight in an empty car, he wakes up to find his bag and passport stolen, leaving him even more stranded.
Having exhausted the good will of his friends and family back home, he’s forced to try and find work in the beach town if he has any hope of getting back to Brooklyn. After a series of comic misadventures, he ends up back at the local travel agency, where he bonds with the beautiful but beleaguered Ina (Irmena Chichikova) over a shared love of hip hop. After an ill-fated stint working for the town bully Georgi (Stoyo Mirkov), Khalid ends up back at the travel agency, where Ina takes pity on him, offering him a place to stay in the back office.
Luckily, Khalid seems to have charmed the whole town in record time and – ever the Brooklyn barista – quickly puts himself to work, opening a makeshift café serving matcha and fusion sandwiches out of Ina’s dilapidated office. The Blue Flowers Café, as he calls it, quickly grows so popular amongst the locals that Ina starts to dream of turning it into a proper café near the beach, and romance sweetly blossoms between the two. Eventually Khalid starts up an open mike night at the café, giving real-life musician Hardin the chance to showcase his musical talents.
Bulgaria looks good on Khalid, and he thrives, even starting to pay back old debts. Forget the American Dream, Khalid is chasing the Bulgarian Dream now. Of course, things can’t all go smoothly for our hero, and in a clumsy final act, when Khalid screws up and has to make a choice to flee the new life he’s built, or stick around and fight for it, we find ourselves happy when Ina forgives him and he decides to stick it out in his new home. The film ends with the pair taking a trip to cleanse themselves in the famous therapeutic mud of the Black Sea, clutching each other in a primordial embrace before letting the waves wash over them.
While the film is expectedly rough around the edges given its improvisational premise, it’s a treat to watch, with Hardin in particular displaying an irrepressible guileless charm and a natural flirtatious energy that quickly engage the viewer. Cinematographer Jackson Hunt keeps a fresh, energetic, and polished lens on the proceedings, and the music featured in the film does a lot of the heavy lifting in keeping the narrative flowing along. In addition to an evocative score by Charles Moselle (co-director Crystal Moselle’s father) fusing electronic elements with hip hop, jazz, and traditional eastern European influences, the film features diverse cuts from Nina Simone, Kool Keith, Nigerian afro-rock group The Funkees, and Bulgarian pop stars Bilyanish and Tita. I look forward to seeing what Moselle and Hardin come up with next.
The Black Sea premiered in competition at the 2024 SXSW Film & TV Festival.
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