Darkness & the Light

Darkness & the Light is a feature-length documentary that confronts the contradictions at the heart of America’s spiritual and political identity. It is at once a deeply personal testimony of asylum and exile and a poetic meditation on the intersections of race, Christianity, and morality. Darkness & the Light is a poetic meditation on the intersections of race, Christianity, and morality that confronts contradictions at the heart of America’s spiritual and political identity.

The film follows Sierra Leonean filmmaker and pastor Arthur Pratt, who is currently seeking asylum in the United States. Arthur uses the camera as both diary and pulpit, chronicling the emotional, spiritual, and political weight of displacement. His reflections weave together biblical scripture, personal memory, historical trauma, and contemporary political realities, resulting in a cinematic sermon that asks: How can a nation built on Christian ideals and scarred by the legacy of slavery reconcile its promises with its practices?

Darkness & the Light embraces contradiction. It reveals how faith is both a source of resilience and a site of profound moral conflict. It explores how African immigrants and African Americans remain bound by shared histories of violence and survival, even while grappling with different identities and struggles. And it examines how spirituality, morality, and politics intertwine in ways that illuminate as much as they obscure.

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Director: Arthur Pratt

Producer: Banker White