Director Kobi Libii wants to tell a different type of story about race with his feature film debut, “The American Society of Magical Negroes,” which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on Friday. “It imagines that being a Magical Negro is a real job you can go get,” Libii said at TheWrap’s Sundance Portrait and Interview Studio presented by NFP. “It’s a satire about race and representation and also, in its way, a full-hearted love story.”
For star Justice Smith, who plays one of the people inducted into this secret society of Black people meant to help aid white discomfort, he was enthralled by how Libii is trying to rewrite how Black stories are told.