Vague Visages’ Brief Tender Light review contains minor spoilers. Arthur Musah’s 2023 PBS documentary features Philip Abel Adama, Fidelis Chimombe, Billy Ndengeyingoma and Sante Nyambo. Check out the VV home page for more film reviews, along with cast/character summaries, streaming guides and complete soundtrack song listings.

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In Brief Tender Light, four African MIT students unlock the golden handcuffs of their cultural conditioning. The battle of the mind fuels the 2023 PBS documentary as filmmaker Arthur Musah examines “the sense of the sinister in the American atmosphere.” Brief Tender Light occasionally feels too brisk while chronicling four complex stories over four years within a 93-minute runtime, and yet the tight editing — courtesy of Musah and three collaborators — allows the audience to understand how the subjects’ core personality traits will potentially translate to future objectives.

MIT’s winter season works as a poignant backdrop during Brief Tender Light’s opening act. Sante, a female student from Tanzania, experiences snow for the first time and searches for on-campus “play” partners. She is arguably the most charismatic of Brief Tender Light’s subjects, with Musah focusing primarily on Sante’s self-perception as a strong African woman. She often worries about being “Americanized” but finds comfort in her belief that “a woman’s place is within herself.” While all of the four subjects experience significant personal growth throughout Brief Tender Light, Sante naturally stands out as the lone female; a Tanzanian woman hoping to represent her country the best she can. She speaks confidently right from the start as a freshman, but Musah continuously captures brief moments of doubt during mid-interview pauses. It’s these relatable gems that breathe extra life into Brief Tender Light.

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Musah, an MIT alum, prioritizes intellectual clarity in Brief Tender Light. His personal anecdotes pop with bittersweet poignancy, most notably when discussing his relationship with his homeland, Ghana. In Brief Tender Light’s most intense sequence, Musah reveals a personal truth about himself that essentially changes the life trajectory of Fidelis, an African man from Zimbabwe with traditional views about masculinity. Overall, the director’s roundabout interview techniques keep the four subjects fully engaged with their origin stories and changing worldviews. Brief Tender Light arguably peaks when Fidelis returns home to develop a poultry business/local school, or perhaps when Philip from Nigeria overcomes depression while pursuing his goals, or maybe when Billy from Rwanda discovers his calling as an architect.

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Set during the early 2010s, Brief Tender Light aligns with the Black Lives Matter movement and the subsequent 2014 Ferguson riots. Musah mostly refrains from heavy-handed political statements but stays focused on the battle of the mind that rages on for himself and the four subjects. Without failure, there’s no growth; without growth, there’s no innovation. Brief Tender Light, with all its cultural complexities, offers an access point for worldwide viewers willing to look beyond lazy stereotypes and reductive interpretations of not just Africans but fellow humans in general.

Brief Tender Light premiered theatrically on January 5 at Firehouse: DCTV’s Cinema for Documentary Film in New York City and will screen on January 7 and January 11 at JxJ: DC Jewish Film & Music in Washington D.C. The documentary will premiere on PBS’s POV for Martin Luther King Jr. Day on January 15 at 9:30 p.m. EST.

Q.V. Hough (@QVHough) is Vague Visages’ founding editor.

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