(January 2025, New York City)—Kevin Powell, GRAMMY-nominated poet, writer, and human and civil rights activist, announces that WHEN WE FREE THE WORLD, his first film as a director, will make its theatrical debut on Friday, January 31 at AMC Empire 25, 234 West 42nd Street, New York, New York 10036, and AMC River East 21, River East Center, 322 E. Illinois Street, Chicago, Illinois 60611. The documentary will be in theaters until Thursday, February 6.
Produced and written by Evangeline Lawson and Kevin Powell through their company Brooklyn Diego, WHEN WE FREE THE WORLD is a deep-dive movie that asks and answers the question, What does it really mean to be a man? The documentary features 70 male voices across five generations, from teenagers to 90-somethings. The film features an all-Black-male original soundtrack conceived by multi-GRAMMY-nominated producer Vidal Davis.
Powell wants WHEN WE FREE THE WORLD to spark dialogue about how we define manhood. “I spent about 6 years working on this doc film, from the early ideas of it as a short to the feature-length final version it is now,” Powell says. “We have carried this film through COVID, presidential elections, the tragic videotaped death of George Floyd, Black Lives Matter, the #MeToo movement, and so much more. I am very proud of what we’ve created, to really look at how we define manhood from many angles, inclusive of so many different types of males. It is my humble hope that this film, WHEN WE FREE THE WORLD, will spark all kinds of conversations, all kinds of action steps and solutions, and push folks to ask the question we ask in the film: ‘What is a man?’”
At the end of the film, covering the entire closing credits, viewers will hear the forthcoming first single entitled, “I’m A Man,” a collective of Black male musical artists, and inspired by the famous Civil Rights-era I AM A MAN photos.
There has never been a movie about manhood like this. For media inquiries, please contact Billy Johnson, Jr., at billy@mediaandrepertoire.com.
