The trailer for an upcoming Netflix documentary titled Blood Brothers: Malcolm X & Muhammad Ali, has been released.
The documentary explores the three-year-long friendship between the civil rights leader and the legendary boxer. It’ll make use of historical footage and interviews with family and friends of both men. Blood Brothers will explore how the two men met, became friends, and how their friendship cracked.
The documentary is produced by Kenya Barris and inspired by the Blood Brothers book. Released in 2016, Randy Roberts and Johnny Smith are joint writers of the book.
Watch the trailer below
The documentary’s official synopsis says,
“Blood Brothers tells the extraordinary and ultimately tragic story of the friendship between two of the most iconic figures of the 20th century: Muhammad Ali, the greatest boxer of all time, and Malcolm X, the Nation of Islam’s — and black America’s — most incendiary and charismatic leader. This was the unlikeliest of friendships – the brash Olympic Champion who spoke in verse to the amusement of the white press and the ex-con intellectual-turned-revolutionary who railed against the evils of white oppression and dismissed sports as a triviality. But their bond was deep, their friendship real.”
Popular Civil rights activist, Reverend Al Sharpton said, “They define a whole generation to be themselves and be bold.”
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Also, interviews from Ali’s younger brother Rahman Ali and Malcolm X’s daughter Ilyasah Shabazz feature in the documentary. Speaking on the duo’s friendship, Shabazz said, “For my father to take his wife and his babies, and go to [Ali’s] home meant that my father trusted him 100 percent.”
Director Marcus A Clarke said in a statement,
“Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali are two of the most iconic and revered African Americans of the twentieth century, and yet the depths of their friendship and the influence they had on each other is largely unknown. Blood Brothers provides a deeper understanding into what made these two men tick, the intense role faith played in their bond and ultimately how their budding friendship came to an abrupt end,”
Blood Brothers will be available to stream on Netflix from September 9.
