Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project

2/6/2024

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 commentary unapologetically leveled against the initiatives of both the right and the left when she felt the need to express them, frequently making her a lightning rod for attention from opponents on both en