A King Like Me

Follows members of the Zulu Club, New Orleans’ first Black Mardi Gras, as they work to bring the Zulu parade back to the streets.

2024 | Running Time: 1 Hour 30 minutes | Rating: NR

A King Like Me follows the Zulu Krewe through joy and loss from Hurricane Katrina, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the aftermath of both. The documentary dives into the fascinating origins of the Zulu Club, highlighting how Black people and Black culture have shaped New Orleans, taking the negatives and turning them into something positive.

One example is the Zulus wearing Black face as Black people. This has been a controversial technique used to take back and mock racism — like using the N-word. We can use it, but you can’t. Zulu traces its origins to 1909, when the original founders paraded as a marching club. Between 1912 and 1914, the group adopted an African theme for their costumes and became known as the Zulus.

A King Like Me highlights the people: the way they speak, the way they commune, and the way they eat. This story is told honestly through the lens of the New Orleanians. The film does a great job of weaving history with the present. Learning that a group of Black men came together and created their own piece of the Mardi Gras during a time when the KKK was on the rise and holding their own during the release of Birth of a Nation exemplifies the strength and determination these men had to carve a place in this world. It’s a determination that lives on to this day.

Martha’s Vineyard African American Film Festival: Winner for Best Documentary

Director Matthew O. Henderson a native New Yorker, has worked in the Film & Television Industry for over fifteen years.  As a producer, he’s worked on a number of films including Fragments of Paradise, which had its World Premiere at the 2022 Venice Film Festival, winning Best Documentary on Cinema; True Justice: Bryan Stevenson’s Fight for Equality, which won a Peabody Award and an Emmy Award for Outstanding Social Issue Documentary; The Soul of America; Gordon Parks: A Choice of Weapon; and Obama: In Pursuit of a More Perfect Union.   Matthew bridges the technical and creative hemispheres having worked for over ten years as a Camera Assistant and Camera Operator. Matthew’s passion for storytelling coupled with his ability to conceptualize and create compelling, and soulful visuals has allowed him to film all around the world.  Whether it’s a remote aboriginal village in Eastern Australia, floating along the Venice like canals of Makoko, Nigeria in Africa, or filming at depths of five-hundred feet below the Atlantic Ocean, his approach to filmmaking is always the same – tell the story you find, not the one you expect to find.

Tags: Documentary, Feature