The Film ‘Blú Honey’ Shows the Poetry of Coming of Age in Richmond

When Richmond writer Donté Clark penned his latest project, a short film titled Blú Honey, he wasn’t sure how his concept would land.

“You can’t write a film using poetry as the vehicle,” he said to himself.

After initially doubting his ability to tell a full story with poetic dialog, symbolic visuals and excerpts from archives, he reversed course by asking himself one simple question: “What if?”

What if we had somebody who wrote our experience in such a beautiful language, he imagined, but they had gold teeth when they said it? What if it was the drunk elder at the corner store? Or the youngster in the shiesty mask who said something beautiful and poetic?

Clark considered that he’d never seen it done before, and then he said to himself, “You just gotta do it.” The end result is a 19-minute film that showcases the coming-of-age experience for a young Black man in Richmond, California.

Debuting Thursday, Feb. 26 during a screening event at El Cerrito High School, the film’s story is told through lyrical language, affirmations and metaphorical visuals. There’s layers of audio taken from interviews with longtime community advocates, as well as clips recorded at an actual eulogy for Clark’s aunt.

The film starts with images of Clark running through a wooded area, interspersed with clips of him striking down an inner-city block, a scene that ultimately bookends the film. The visuals symbolize our ancestors running from slavery in the antebellum South, says Clark, noting that it parallels modern depictions of African Americans running from cops, opps or other oppressive forces.

A spiritual journey in both senses, in the film’s opening sequence Clark falls mid-stride. “You can’t run from what’s haunting you inside,” Clark tells me, explaining the scene, as well as one of the morals of the film as a whole.

Blú Honey then cuts to an elder man (played by James Wheaton) sitting on a porch, reading while drinking from a coffee mug. “Lions and lambs gathered around the porch light near the praying man,” recites Clark, offscreen. Archival news clips of a Richmond refinery burning are butted up against reels of Malcolm X speaking, as Clark concludes his poetic intro.

It all sets the tone for the next sequence, a moving interaction between a mother (Niyesha Clark) and a son (Curtis Thorton).

She’s doing another a little girl’s hair while her son prepares for school. Before the boy hits the door the mother says, “Heart on lion.” Holding a brown lunch bag and wearing a big black jacket, the boy replies, “Mind on humble.” The two conclude the affirmation in unison, “Rumble, blackbird rumble.”

That call-and-response is something Clark and his wife, lyricist Marjé, came up with. Inspired by Muhammed Ali’s famous “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee” quote, the couple remixed it to fit their lives.

Even before the birth of their young daughter Zipporah, whose name derives from the Aramaic word for little bird, Clark says they knew this phrase was something they wanted to teach to their child. “We would just say that to each other,” Clark explains, “to remind ourselves to be brave, but also to walk with humility.”

In the film, that message lands on the ears of a young man who walks out of the caring confines of his mother’s home and literally jumps into a car with four masked men.

The driver dons KKK headwear, while the passenger is already in a Michael Myers costume. The little boy sits in the middle of the back seat between a person in a Friday the 13th Jason mask and another in a hoodie, black mask and sunglasses.

“The one in the black mask is being controlled or puppeteered or influenced by the white masks,” says Clark, pointing out that the person in the black mask also ushers the little boy into the car — a visual message in itself.

As they ride, the off-screen voice of DeWanda Joseph can be heard painting a picture of Richmond’s cohesive community back in the day. Her description of a safe place for kids to play juxtaposes with the image of the masked men and the little boy, who remains unfazed, riding through the city.

By the end of the ride the little boy emerges older (played by De’marion Cooper). Now high school–aged, he walks into a classroom that isn’t in a traditional school. Instead, it’s just a few rows of desks in the middle of the housing projects. And on the desks, between the sparse number of present students, are flowers, candles and teddy bears, memorizing the students who are no longer here.

“I speak from my personal experience,” says Clark, who went to Richmond High School. He says his classroom was just like the hood. There were fights and guns, people represented their blocks. Some had money, some struggled.

The film shows the boy sitting at a desk, using pens to tap out a drum beat while a piano score plays. “This brown boy carried 17 caskets and his unfinished homework on his back,” Clark’s voice narrates as the camera pans, showing some students reading and others sleeping. White roses rest on desks and blue balloons blow in the wind.

“You got some [students] trying to do their work, but some is just like ‘I’m here,’” Clark tells me, describing both the scene and his own educational experience. “I might as well be invisible because the teachers don’t really see me. They don’t see who I am. They don’t see where I come from. They don’t see what I go through. They don’t see what it took for me to even come to this classroom.”

In the end, the students realize that no teacher is present, and they disappear.

The film concludes as it starts, with images of the elder man on the porch paired with visuals of Clark running through woodlands and urban streets. It ends with the audio of a sermon, leaving the audience on an uplifting note: “We all got a chance to live again, and that’s eternal life.”

Clark, who received support from the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts’ Creative Corps Initiative and the community-championing arts collective Be-Imaginative, says this film is about community empowerment, as well as showing other prose writers what can be done with the craft.

The author of KnowFreedom and We Cry Freedom, Clark also acted in the 2017 web series The North Pole and was featured in the 2015 documentary film Romeo Is Bleeding. The Richmond native, who is working on a play titled Panthers on Fifth Street, says with Blú Honey he simply wanted to tell a story about a young Black man in Richmond learning about both the outside world and the world inside of himself. And, he also aimed to do something for the writers.

“I want the poets to be able to see themselves,” he says. “Like, ‘Oh okay, so not only could I do slam poetry and write books, but I could write a movie too.’”

The short film ‘Blú Honey’ debuts at 6 p.m. on Feb. 26, 2026 at El Cerrito High School (540 Ashbury Ave., El Cerrito). For tickets and more information, click here.