Freaknik: Un festival sauvage

As "Freaknik: The Wildest Party Never told" (2024 release; 82 min.) opens, rapper Killer Mike reflects on how Atlanta reflects on how Atlanta has become a Mecca" for black arts, culture and everything else. We then go back in time to "1983" when the first Black College Spring Break (later renamed Freaknik) was organized by Atlanta HBCU's. At this point we are 10 minutes into the movie...

Couple of comments: this is the latest from producer-writer-director P. Frank Williams. He has recruited a slew of talking heads that were there to witness it all (or in part if they were late comers), with many of them also serving as executive producers, including Luke Campbell, Jermaine Dupri, 21 Savage, Geraldine Porras, and others. I was generally not familiar with Freaknik and was curious to check this out. As with many organically grown events that as some point evolve into something much bigger, there are some good things and some not so good things, but it is a fascinating look into Black America, not unlike, say, the Oscar-winning "Summer Of Soul" documentary was a few years ago. To be fair, "Freaknik" suffers a bit when compared to "Summer of Soul", which was just magical from start to finish. "Freaknik" is magical for a while, and then suddenly it isn't anymore, before becoming ugly altogether.

"Freaknik: The Wildest Party Never Told" premiered at this year's SXSW film festival and then started streaming on Hulu last weekend, where I caught it last night. If you have any interest in either Atlanta or in Black history, I'd readily suggest you check it out and draw your own conclusion.