The Inquisitor
A film by Angela Tucker
In 1972, Barbara Jordan became the first Southern Black woman to join Congress. THE INQUISITOR chronicles Representative Jordan’s meteoric rise offering a blueprint for uniting a divided America through a turbulent political era.
United States | 2025 | 98 minutes | English | Order No. W251321
SYNOPSIS
As a young girl in Houston’s Fifth Ward, Barbara Jordan was taught to defy expectations. She understood that to succeed, she would need to forge her own path. With relentless determination and unyielding tenacity, Barbara Jordan made history as Texas’s first Black state senator and the first Southern Black woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. In a world dominated by white men, she moved with deft skill, earning both their respect and their fear. At a time when the idea of a Black woman holding power seemed inconceivable, Barbara Jordan created a roadmap for change.
Angela Lynn Tucker’s THE INQUISITOR offers a powerful portrait of Barbara Jordan’s rise to prominence. Told through Barbara’s commanding voice and making use of archival footage, the film weaves her inspiring personal story with key historical moments, highlighting her profound impact on American politics. Her legacy invites reflection on the nation’s past and present, emphasizing the importance of civic engagement and the power of bipartisanship.
Barbara Jordan’s oratory skills became legendary, particularly her historic speech during the Watergate hearings, which earned her the moniker “The Inquisitor.” This title symbolized her dedication to challenging the status quo and her commitment to holding those in power accountable.
Featuring interviews with Rep. Jasmine Crockett, Dan Rather, and many others, and narrated by the Academy Award-nominated actress Alfre Woodard, THE INQUISITOR illuminates Barbara Jordan’s extraordinary life and legacy.
PRESS
More than just a spotlight on a fascinating historical figure, [Tucker's] fantastic film brings the urgency and terror of our current political moment into stark relief.
The strength of the film really lies in Jordan’s words, and Tucker always gives them the weight they deserve.
When the film employs its end credits to show the many monuments in Rep. Jordan’s likeness around the state, Tucker can take pride in building something equally formidable, providing a stage once again for her words to reverberate.
A wonderful archival documentary about Barbara Jordan, a trailblazer and one of the great orators in American political history.
Told through Barbara’s own commanding voice, as narrated by Alfre Woodard, the film intertwines rich archival footage, stylish interviews and more to tell the inspiring story of an American icon.
SCREENING HIGHLIGHTS AND AWARDS
- Tribeca Film Festival, 2025
- DC/DOX Film Festival, 2025
- Austin Film Festival, 2025
- New Orleans Film Festival, 2025
ABOUT FILMMAKER(S)
Angela Tucker
Angela Tucker is an Emmy and Webby Award–winning filmmaker and artist dedicated to telling stories that spotlight underrepresented communities in bold and unconventional ways.
Her recent work includes Belly of the Beast (dir. Erika Cohn), a New York Times Critics’ Pick; The Trees Remember, a Webby-winning branded series created in collaboration with REI Co-Op Studios; and A New Orleans Noel, a Lifetime holiday film starring Patti LaBelle.
Angela’s past directorial work includes the PBS-aired documentary short All Skinfolk, Ain’t Kinfolk; the groundbreaking web series Black Folk Don’t, featured in Time Magazine’s “10 Ideas That Are Changing Your Life”; the feature film All Styles (Showtime); and A(sexual), a feature documentary about people who experience no sexual attraction, which streamed on Netflix and Hulu.
Her latest film, The Inquisitor—a portrait of political icon Barbara Jordan—will premiere at the 2025 Tribeca Film Festival and broadcast nationally on PBS. (10/08)
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PROFILED
Profiled knits the stories of mothers of Black and Latino youth murdered by the NYPD into a powerful indictment of racial profiling and police brutality, and places them within a historical context of the roots of racism in the U.S. Some of the victims—Eric Garner, Michael Brown—are now familiar the world over. Others, like Shantel Davis and Kimani Gray, are remembered mostly by family and friends in their New York neighborhoods.
Ranging from the routine harassment of minority students in an affluent Brooklyn neighborhood to the killings and protests in Staten Island and Ferguson, Missouri, PROFILED bears witness to the racist violence that remains an everyday reality for Black and Latino people in this country. Moving interviews with victims’ family members are juxtaposed with sharply etched analyses by evolutionary biologist, Joseph L.Graves, Jr, (The Race Myth) and civil rights lawyer, Chauniqua D. Young, (Center for Constitutional Rights, Stop and Frisk lawsuit). PROFILED gives us a window on one of the burning issues of our time.
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Ovarian Psycos
Riding at night through streets deemed dangerous in Eastside Los Angeles, the Ovarian Psycos use their bicycles to confront the violence in their lives. At the helm of the crew is founder Xela de la X, a single mother and poet M.C. dedicated to recruiting an unapologetic, misfit crew of women of color. The film intimately chronicles Xela as she struggles to strike a balance between her activism and nine year old daughter Yoli; street artist Andi who is estranged from her family and journeys to become a leader within the crew; and bright eyed recruit Evie, who despite poverty, and the concerns of her protective Salvadoran mother, discovers a newfound confidence.
The film Ovarian Psycos rides along with the Ova’s, exploring the impact of the group’s activism, born of feminist ideals, Indigenous understanding and an urban/hood mentality, on neighborhood women and communities as they confront injustice, racism, and violence, and take back their streets one ride at a time.
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Four Wives – One Man
From Nahid Persson, the filmmaker of the award-winning Prostitution Behind the Veil, comes an intimate portrait of a polygamist family in a rural Iranian village. Persson reveals the intricacies of the relationships between the four wives, their husband, their astoundingly free-spoken mother-in-law and their numerous children. Sometimes humorous and often heartbreaking, this film follows the daily lives of the wives whose situation has turned them into both bitter rivals and co-conspirators against their abusive husband.
Persson’s camera unobtrusively and beautifully captures the range of the family’s interactions – from peaceful, pastoral scenes of a family picnic, to the temporary chaos caused by a broken faucet in the kitchen, to a furtive, whispered conversation between two wives about the latest beating. The women’s work – making bread, weaving carpets, milking and herding the sheep – provide the background to their frank conversations. Avoiding sensationalism and sentimentality, this film provides unique insights into the practice of polygamy and its effect on the women involved.
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