-New Urban Awards Season- Golden Globe 2019 Coverage: Artists of Color Shine as Nominees (and Winners!) from Sunday's Golden Globes

Sunday night's Golden Globes Awards in Los Angeles marked the beginning stages of the most heated phase of creative arts awards season for 2019.   While the ceremony awards artistic excellence in American film and television,  it is actually an honor created and awarded by Hollywood Foreign Press Association, a non-profit organization of LA-based foreign journalists and photographers reporting on the American entertainment industry for media outside of the United States.

Created in the 1940s,  the Hollywood Foreign Press Association has members from 55 nations, including Germany, with one of Deutschland's most notable press representatives being German Vogue. Each year HFPA members interview more than 400 actors, directors, writers, and producers,  attend film festivals in other countries, and report from the sets of over 300 films to seek out interesting and innovative foreign language cinema- and establish cultural bonds with directors, actors, jurors and fellow journalists around the world. 

This year provided a rich list of nominees from America's black & Latino x community that made the grade for a nomination. Check out our recap below of the best nominees of color in the most landmark tv and film performances for 2018.

Film Nominees

BEST DRAMA  

IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK

Based on the 1974 novel by American author(and European expatriate) James Baldwin. "If Beale Street Could Talk" is a moving and emotional love story set in 1970s Harlem, about the unbreakable bond between childhood friends who become a young adult couple, and the loving African American family that cocoons them.  Visually poetic and achingly tender, "If Beal Street Could Talk" comes to German theaters February 14th, 2019 (Valentine's Day 💕 )

BLACK PANTHER

The superhero film that took the world by storm in 2018, directed by Ryan Coogler and the first black American film to gross over 1 billion dollars- expect Marvel superhero Black Panther to return for future sequels. In the meantime, you can catch a repeat for yourself via Amazon,  iTunes, or Google Play.

BLACKkKLANSMAN

After having spent the last few years working more in a film producer mode, acclaimed director Spike Lee returned to the international film scene with BlackkKlansman,  a project based on the true story of Detective Ron Stallworth, the first African American to serve in the Colorado Springs Police Department - in this unbelievable story, with the assistance of his Jewish police partner (played by Adam Driver), Stallworth makes a name for himself by becoming  the first black man to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan. For his efforts, Lee's BlackkKlansman ran away with top honors at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival, with movie winning the prized Golden Palm (Palme d'OR). BlackkKlansman is still playing in a few theaters across Germany, and showtimes can be found via filmstarts.de . It is also playing on most streaming services.

BEST ACTOR, COMEDY OR MUSICAL

LIN-MANUEL MIRANDA- MARY POPPINS RETURNS

The creative mastermind behind the Broadway smash hit musicals In the Heights, and the cultural phenomenon that is HAMILTON, Puerto Rican actor/composer/writer Lin Manuel Miranda hits the big screen in Disney's Mary Poppins Returns and earns his first nomination for Best Actor.  For his tremendous achievement on the Broadway stage,  this past November,  Manuel-Miranda became the youngest recipient of a Kennedy Center Honor for lifetime achievement in performing arts.  Mary Poppins Returns arrived in German theaters on December 20th, and you can find current showtimes via filmstarts.de

BEST DIRECTOR 

 SPIKE LEE- BLACKkKLANSMAN

He took home top prize at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival: after the Golden Globes, will an Oscar be far behind?  Check out visionary director Spike Lee's (tamer) remarks on how the film BlakkKlansman came to be, and why highlighting this story is relevant to current events today

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

MARHERSHALA ALI-  GREEN BOOK

Green Book is a cinematic memoir based on the life recollections of Dr. Don Shirley (Oscar winner Mahershala Ali) a world-class African-American pianist, who is about to embark on a concert tour in the Deep South in 1962. In need of a driver and protection, Shirley recruits Tony Lip (Viggo Mortensen), a tough-talking bouncer from an Italian-American neighborhood in the Bronx. Despite their differences, the two men soon develop an unexpected bond while confronting racism and danger in an era of segregation.

The project is co-written by Nick Vallelonga and based on interviews from his father Tony Vallelonga,  the man who served as Dr. Shirley's driver and bodyguard in real life.  The film itself is actually named after The Negro Motorist Green Book,  a mid-century travel guidebook for African Americans written by Victor Hugo Green, to help Blacks find motels and restaurants that would accept their patronage in pre-Civil Rights America. Although the film was released in November of 2018,  current showtimes for Green Book can be found via CinemaxX.de

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS (WINNER!)

REGINA KING- IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK

We knew her first as "Brenda Jenkins" America's favorite only child on the 80s hit TV series, 227.   Today she's a 40-year entertainment veteran: a prolific and Emmy Award-winning actress, writer, and television director that for some reason has gone largely unnoticed.  With her Award-nominated turn in the sleeper hit, "If Beale Street Could Talk", that all may soon change- and we can't think of a more deserving artist than actress Regina King.

TV Nominees

BEST TV DRAMA SERIES

POSE ( FX Network)

In one of the most effervescent, emotionally nuanced television dramas of 2018,  director Ryan Murphy and producer Janet Mock bring us the critically acclaimed musical drama "POSE". Set in  1980s New York City,  POSE explores the juxtaposition of several segments of life and society on Manhattan Island: the ball culture world, the rise of the luxury Trump-era universe, the dawn of the AIDS epidemic, and the downtown social and literary scene.  Often underscored by an incredible curation of 1980s chart hits to advance the plot, POSE centers on a young character named Blanca  (MJ Rodriguez) as she forms a "house,"- a self-selected family of creatives that provides a nucleus, physical home, and support to youth who have been rejected by their birth families.  Deceptively superficial on the surface, the series gives a rousing testament to the humanity that exists in us all, and here's a tearjerker warning for the empathetic:  nearly every episode will require at least a mini-pack of tissues..!

BEST ACTOR, TV DRAMA

BILLY PORTER-  POSE

In one of the wittiest comedic portrayals of the year, Broadway star and director Billy Porter earned his first television award nomination on the Fx Network's hit show, POSE.  In his celluloid breakout role as Pray Tell, Porter plays an aspiring uptown fashion designer who serves as the emcee of New York's voguing and ball scene, during the time when his community becomes decimated by the AIDS crisis. As generous and supportive as he is cutting and acerbic, Porter's Pray Tell evolves as the best friend, loving uncle, father figure, and stern disciplinarian that anyone would be honored to have in their corner and by their side.

BEST ACTOR,  TV COMEDY OR MUSICAL

DONALD GLOVER - ATLANTA

In the award-winning satirical drama created and written by Donald Glover (who is also known as comedian and  Grammy Award-winning  r&b and hip hop artist Childish Gambino),  Glover stars as an aspiring music manager named Earn, who returns to Atlanta after college to manage his cousin Miles, an up-and-coming rapper in Atlanta's local music scene.  The pair's core group of friends and also includes best friend Darius and Earn's best friend Vanessa, who is also the mother of his child.  In what TV critics term as one of the most innovative shows on US television, viewers follow Earn, Miles, and their makeshift entourage as they try to get Miles to understand the line between art, real life, and street life.  Atlanta is available vis most streaming services including Amazon Video.