A new short documentary gives an unprecedented look behind the scenes at creating the movie posters for Spike Lee’s latest joint, Da 5 Bloods (Netflix). This film features Kenny Gravillis, art director for the marketing campaign, and includes a special in-depth conversation with artist & activist Emory Douglas, former Minister of Culture for the Black Panther Party, whose work inspired the film's key art.

Editor Jay Nelson recounts, “It would be inappropriate to even attempt any cosmic commentary on the timing of receiving an assignment like this film about Emory Douglas working with Spike on a movie poster. The project came to me in early March before the lockdown even started. But nonetheless I found myself creating a film about the Black Panther Press and its importance to Black America during one of the most tumultuous social revolutions in American History. It made me hyper-aware that the same injustices that spawned the party’s formation have been happening ever since. I never take on a documentary subject unless I feel there’s an important lesson to be learned from it, and making one is essentially like getting four years of college credit on the matter. It just so happened that when the unrest finally came to a boil with the injustice surrounding George Floyd I had just inherited a vocabulary and renewed appreciation for what it means to be black in America and a greater understanding of what this rebellion is all about. We locked our edit 2 weeks before the protests. Spike was, as always, on the mark in his choice of timely subject matter and as a result of his commitment to authenticity in his representation, hiring Emory to do the artwork not only served to bring the importance of the Black Panther Press to light, but also that the same horrible and repeated injustice that was being served people of color in this country then still finds it’s purchase in today’s world and in fact we haven’t come that far at all.”

“I wouldn’t trade the time I spent grinding away at this film for anything,” he continues. “And I have an enormous admiration for what the likes of Eldridge Clever, Huey Newton, Bobby Seale and Emory Douglas were fighting for. I only hope the world hears it again.”