Screening of Nikki Giovanni documentary coming up Friday at Page Hall

Filmmakers Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson will be featured at the Albany Film Festival later this month.

By Lillian Magurno, NYS Writers Institute intern

Tuesday, March 10, 2026

Nearly two years after her passing, poet Nikki Giovanni’s work continues to resonate. A 2023 documentary, "Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project," revisits her poetry and the pivotal moments in Black history that shaped her life and art.

Now, Giovanni’s lifetime achievements are being featured in the documentary "Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project" traces Giovanni’s life across decades of activism, from the civil rights era to the rise of Black Lives Matter. Directed by Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson, the film blends archival footage, experimental visuals, and Giovanni’s own words.

The documentary will be screened at 7 p.m. Friday, March 13, at Page Hall on the UAlbany Downtown Campus, 135 Western Avenue in Albany. The event is free and open to the public. Watch the trailer.

Giovanni became a defining voice of the Black Arts Movement, known for poems rooted in social justice, Black pride, and community. Her first three collections — Black Feeling, Black Talk (1968), Black Judgement (1968), and Re: Creation (1970) — emerged alongside the civil rights movement of the late 1960s.

“Black love is Black wealth and they’ll / probably talk about my hard childhood / and never understand that / all the while I was quite happy,” she wrote in “Nikki‑Rosa,” one of her signature early poems.

The documentary won a Primetime Emmy for Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking, and the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance. The film was also shortlisted for a Best Documentary Oscar. Brewster and Michèle Stephenson will be featured with a virtual Q&A to take place at 11 a.m. Saturday, March 28, at UAlbany's Campus Center West Multi-Purpose Room.

“'Going to Mars' works around its reluctant protagonist, building depth through its form. Brewster and Stephenson find freedom in experimental techniques, including a liberal use of space iconography and keen excerpting of Giovanni’s poems, to highlight their subtext,” wrote Lovia Gyarkye in a Hollywood Reporter review. The review emphasizes the point that Giovanni is given the freedom to choose what she wants to be remembered through the film.

The documentary will be screened Friday, March 13, in the build up to the Albany Film Festival coming up on Saturday, March 28. Giovanni last visited the NYS Writers Institute in 2019 to help celebrate the 50th anniversary of the UAlbany Department of Africana Studies.

"Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project"

7 p.m. Friday, March 13

Page Hall, UAlbany Downtown Campus

135 Western Avenue

Albany NY 12203

Free and open to the public