Translation assembled an all-star lineup of talent to create what our jury deemed the year’s most artfully crafted film, for Beats by Dre. With a seductive score from Solange Knowles, a poetic script penned by Lena Waithe and direction by Prettybird’s Melina Matsoukas, the two-minute film assembles a striking, complicated mosaic of Black celebrities and cultural figures to challenge viewers with the question, “You love my culture, but do you love me?” 

Naomi Osaka, Bubba Wallace, Lil Baby and the Compton Cowboys are among those who appear in meticulously crafted vignettes that bring into sharp relief the dichotomy between the public’s “love” for Black culture and the Black community's enduring struggle for equality and justice. The agency says Matsoukas “aimed to depict everyday Black life in a way that felt both entirely familiar but also traditionally unseen on-screen, a visual world that was “all about seeing Black people as extremely diverse yet all united by their ordinary existence.” The film’s powerful craft and message were singular amid the myriad brand statements about racial justice that rolled out in 2020. 

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