Jean-Michel Basquiat
Jean-Michel Basquiat burned brightly in his 27 years—and still does in a legacy both artistic and personal reflected in this touching and at turns heartbreaking and buoyant documentary (the only one officially approved by Basquiat’s estate and family) centered around reminiscences by the painter’s surviving sisters, Lisane and Jeanine. The siblings relate stories of life at home in the family’s Brooklyn brownstone, their brother’s early interest in drawing, and the difficulties that arose when their parents separated. To augment these memories and catalog his rise in the art world, the film employs exceptional archival footage and key voices of contemporaries, including Fab 5 Freddy, Kenny Scharf, and Arthur Jafa. As these artists express what Basquiat meant to them and to the downtown NYC demimonde, Lisane and Jeanine speak to how affable, kind, gregarious, and flawed their sibling was. The result is very much a multidimensional portrait of the artist, but even more, the portrait of an endlessly fascinating man. —Rod Armstrong
Director/s
Viridiana Lieberman
Viridiana Lieberman has edited many features and series, most notably the award-winning documentaries, The Perfect Neighbor (2025), The Sentence (2018), I Am Evidence (2017), Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power (2022), Through Our Eyes: Apart (2021), and Call Center Blues (2020). An avid women’s sports fan, her directorial debut, Born To Play, based on her book Sports Heroines on Film, premiered on ESPN and ABC in 2020. She wants to be a part of creating specific work that pushes storytelling into new forms of approach. Always rooting with the personal character-driven narratives that shape not only our imaginations but how we see the world we want to be in.
Quinn Whitney Wilson
Quinn Whitney Wilson is a NYC-based Creative and Film Director, known for blending nostalgia, bold color, and camp in service of championing authentic representations of queerness and blackness in modern media. A longtime collaborator of Grammy-winning artist Lizzo, Wilson’s multi-disciplinary experiences have given her an uncommon versatility—felt across her work on everything from brand advertising to narrative film and documentaries. This includes campaigns for Billie and Calvin Klein, music videos for King Princess and Lizzo, episodic work for Showtime's ZIWE (2021), Marvel Studios' women-focused documentary MPower (2023), and even content for Ru Paul’s Drag Race. For these projects, and her commitment to centering marginalized stories, Quinn has earned features in Vogue, Pitchfork, Fader, Dazed and beyond.
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