‘Black Santa’ Gives Audiences Something Challenging for Christmas
variety.comTara McNamara “Black Santa.” In two words, the progressively provocative title of Minneapolis-based Travis Wood’s Indeed Rising Voices short is likely to spark intrigue about this emergent filmmaker with a fresh perspective.
The 10-minute comedy follows Henry, an Atlanta father who makes an annual tradition of working as a mall Santa Claus with his son Otis as an elf sidekick.
Now in his self-conscious middle school years, Otis is embarrassed by the charade until he learns that his father has a noble ulterior motive: to help teach him how to upend stereotypes and increase positive Black representation.
In both commercial and personal efforts, Wood specializes in telling stories about the Black experience. Given the theme of “the meaning of work” for the Rising Voices project, Wood saw an opportunity to further a concept he’d been prepping before the pandemic. “The initial inspiration for ‘Black Santa’ was from a gentleman I’d met that had been a Santa for 50 years,” says Wood. “There are so many Christmas films and they’re all what they refer to as ‘traditional Santas,’ which is just a white Santa.
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