Juneteenth is finally an official US holiday. Will we get more movies about it?
Saturday, June 19, 2021 at 11:11AM 
Following recent voting in Congress, Juneteenth is finally a federal holiday. It's been too long in coming. And speaking of since this is a film site ... Have you caught up with last year's Miss Juneteenth yet? It's so good and Nicole Beharie is just perfect in the leading role, as a former beauty queen who has to learn to let go of trying to strictly mold her daughter into a new version of herself. She won the Gotham Award and was a medalist here at TFE as well. For our money she was better than the bulk of Oscar's acting nominees last season...
There aren't that many holidays that play a significant role in multiple movies apart from Christmas, Halloween, and Easter but there probably should be since official holidays are so threaded through all of our lives in various ways. Have you seen Juneteenth factor into any other films? Deep cut movie recommendations welcome!
This might also be a good excuse to rewatch Lincoln (2012) if you've got a spare 150 minutes as it painted such a complex portrait of the political battles during the Civil War. Last season's News of the World (2020) is not directly related to the end of slavery but is also unexpectedly illuminating about America during those years. If you've ever wondered how enslaved people in Texas didn't get the news of their freedom until two years after the Emancipation Proclamation, that recent western offers a rarely dramatized view of the general chaos and resistance of that particular geographically gargantuan (and thus hard to control) state to Federal rule in the year's following the war.
Holidays, Lincoln, Miss Juneteenth, News of the World, Nicole Beharie, Texas, politics
Reader Comments (3)
Not films but television series black-ish and Atlanta did episodes about Juneteenth.
My goodness, I so loved Miss Juneteenth and Nicole Beharie's performance in it. Just luminous! As far as film and TV about the holiday/event, I don't think there is much beyond what's already been mentioned, though I remember reading that NBC was developing a Miss Juneteenth series with the writer-director. No idea if that's still happening.
I really liked it. Certain things felt rushed or maybe I just wanted to spend more time with the characters. The guy with the funeral home and the horse, the religious mother, the lady with the blue wig... I love a good indie movie.