Khalid asks a man, hiding from the downpour, in “The Black Sea.” One might say they do: “Like the American dream, but in Bulgarian way,” the stranger responds.

Black aesthetics materializes in communities of artists, activists, theorists, and others who critique racial inequities, create new forms of interiority and relationality, uncover affective histories ...

“The Black Sea,” with its wink of a title, certainly makes it seem so. But in a key way, this gentle, nonjudgmental lark is timely too.