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Six Black West Point graduates explore their friendship, love and inclusion in the shadow of America's War on Terror.
The 37-minute documentary film "Black Knights", portrays six Black West Point graduates and the evolution of their friendship and how their love for one another continues to impact their lives. Filmed remotely during the Covid-19 pandemic and immediately after the United States withdrawal from Afghanistan, we learn about these profound West Point graduates’ lives in intimate detail: their attending and meeting at the United States Military Academy at West Point, deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, and South Korea; subsequent careers in the private sector; success in business and graduate school; as well as the group's diversity and inclusion regarding its LGBTQ+ members. Using remote interviews, archival footage of domestic and international Army bases and battlefields and Presidential speeches; as well as personal photos, the film offers a rare opportunity for audiences to discover the impact of male friendships on society and challenge preconceived notions of who serves in the U.S. military and what that means for America.
Director Biography - Stephen Sowers
Stephen Sowers is a documentary filmmaker based in New York. His credits include archival producing, associate producing, and research work on a range of historical and cultural projects for PBS, ESPN, Netflix, and Amazon Prime. His projects have covered major events of the 20th Century through modern day on topics ranging from the impact of sports on society, American Wars from WWII to present, and major figures including Billy Graham and Helen Keller. The short documentary film "Black Knights", about six Black West Point graduates and their enduring friendship in the shadow of the U.S. War on Terror, is his directorial debut.
Director Statement
"Black Knights" began as an idea during the COVID-19 pandemic, but in many ways the story started over twenty years ago in Columbia, Maryland. Growing up there, I met Geoffrey Easterling and Kelechi Odocha in sixth grade before later attending high school and playing football alongside them. During those years, I co-directed a short documentary about our football team, unknowingly beginning a lifelong interest in storytelling and the ways young men form identity, purpose, and brotherhood together.
Geoff and Kelechi were exceptional athletes and leaders who would go on to attend the United States Military Academy at West Point, becoming Army officers and serving overseas in Afghanistan and South Korea. Meanwhile, I attended UMass Amherst, where I developed parallel interests in documentary filmmaking and military history. Though I considered military service myself, my path ultimately led me into filmmaking, including work at Florentine Films on Ken Burns’ landmark 10-part series "The Vietnam War".
Over the years, I stayed close with Geoff and Kelechi and came to know their larger circle of friends — Tim, El, Carlton, and Ian — six men whose bond deeply moved me. As I learned more about their lives, service, and friendship, I became convinced their story needed to be shared. They are extraordinarily compassionate, emotionally open, ambitious, and supportive of one another in ways that challenge many conventional ideas about masculinity, military culture, and American identity.
Though they did not fight side-by-side in the traditional “Band of Brothers” sense, their deployments overlapped across Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait and South Korea. They supported one another through the emotional realities of military service and later carried that same sense of fraternity into civilian life, helping each other transition into graduate school, careers, and family life. Their story also expands common perceptions of who serves in the U.S. military: within this close-knit brotherhood are members of the LGBTQ+ community, including one bisexual member and one transgender member, whose experiences further reveal the complexity and humanity often absent from depictions of soldiers and veterans. At its core, the film explores friendship as a form of survival, healing, and leadership. It asks where soldiers come from, how war shapes identity long after deployment ends, and what becomes possible when men are encouraged to love and support one another openly. In a deeply divided cultural moment, I believe these six men offer an urgently needed vision of empathy, loyalty, and shared purpose.
Made during the pandemic on a very small self-funded budget, the film was created with a lean crew led by my wife and producer Rebecca and myself. Because travel was limited and the subjects were spread across the country, we embraced remote production methods, conducting interviews through webcams and video conferencing technology. We combined these conversations with archival footage from West Point, Army bases, war zones, presidential speeches, and personal photographs contributed by the men themselves. The result is a documentary language shaped by distance, memory, and connection — a film formally rooted in the realities of the moment in which it was made. This project exists because of collaboration, generosity, and trust. Alongside Rebecca, was another producer Jonah Velasco, and editors Cat Harris and Ted Raviv — colleagues from my time at Florentine Films. We created this film with limited resources but enormous care. More than anything, I hope audiences leave "Black Knights" feeling inspired by these six men and reminded that our deepest strength often comes not from individual achievement, but from the people who stand beside us through every chapter of our lives.
Six Black West Point graduates explore their friendship, love and inclusion in the shadow of America's War on Terror.
The 37-minute documentary film "Black Knights", portrays six Black West Point graduates and the evolution of their friendship and how their love for one another continues to impact their lives. Filmed remotely during the Covid-19 pandemic and immediately after the United States withdrawal from Afghanistan, we learn about these profound West Point graduates’ lives in intimate detail: their attending and meeting at the United States Military Academy at West Point, deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, and South Korea; subsequent careers in the private sector; success in business and graduate school; as well as the group's diversity and inclusion regarding its LGBTQ+ members. Using remote interviews, archival footage of domestic and international Army bases and battlefields and Presidential speeches; as well as personal photos, the film offers a rare opportunity for audiences to discover the impact of male friendships on society and challenge preconceived notions of who serves in the U.S. military and what that means for America.
Director Biography - Stephen Sowers
Stephen Sowers is a documentary filmmaker based in New York. His credits include archival producing, associate producing, and research work on a range of historical and cultural projects for PBS, ESPN, Netflix, and Amazon Prime. His projects have covered major events of the 20th Century through modern day on topics ranging from the impact of sports on society, American Wars from WWII to present, and major figures including Billy Graham and Helen Keller. The short documentary film "Black Knights", about six Black West Point graduates and their enduring friendship in the shadow of the U.S. War on Terror, is his directorial debut.
Director Statement
"Black Knights" began as an idea during the COVID-19 pandemic, but in many ways the story started over twenty years ago in Columbia, Maryland. Growing up there, I met Geoffrey Easterling and Kelechi Odocha in sixth grade before later attending high school and playing football alongside them. During those years, I co-directed a short documentary about our football team, unknowingly beginning a lifelong interest in storytelling and the ways young men form identity, purpose, and brotherhood together.
Geoff and Kelechi were exceptional athletes and leaders who would go on to attend the United States Military Academy at West Point, becoming Army officers and serving overseas in Afghanistan and South Korea. Meanwhile, I attended UMass Amherst, where I developed parallel interests in documentary filmmaking and military history. Though I considered military service myself, my path ultimately led me into filmmaking, including work at Florentine Films on Ken Burns’ landmark 10-part series "The Vietnam War".
Over the years, I stayed close with Geoff and Kelechi and came to know their larger circle of friends — Tim, El, Carlton, and Ian — six men whose bond deeply moved me. As I learned more about their lives, service, and friendship, I became convinced their story needed to be shared. They are extraordinarily compassionate, emotionally open, ambitious, and supportive of one another in ways that challenge many conventional ideas about masculinity, military culture, and American identity.
Though they did not fight side-by-side in the traditional “Band of Brothers” sense, their deployments overlapped across Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait and South Korea. They supported one another through the emotional realities of military service and later carried that same sense of fraternity into civilian life, helping each other transition into graduate school, careers, and family life. Their story also expands common perceptions of who serves in the U.S. military: within this close-knit brotherhood are members of the LGBTQ+ community, including one bisexual member and one transgender member, whose experiences further reveal the complexity and humanity often absent from depictions of soldiers and veterans. At its core, the film explores friendship as a form of survival, healing, and leadership. It asks where soldiers come from, how war shapes identity long after deployment ends, and what becomes possible when men are encouraged to love and support one another openly. In a deeply divided cultural moment, I believe these six men offer an urgently needed vision of empathy, loyalty, and shared purpose.
Made during the pandemic on a very small self-funded budget, the film was created with a lean crew led by my wife and producer Rebecca and myself. Because travel was limited and the subjects were spread across the country, we embraced remote production methods, conducting interviews through webcams and video conferencing technology. We combined these conversations with archival footage from West Point, Army bases, war zones, presidential speeches, and personal photographs contributed by the men themselves. The result is a documentary language shaped by distance, memory, and connection — a film formally rooted in the realities of the moment in which it was made. This project exists because of collaboration, generosity, and trust. Alongside Rebecca, was another producer Jonah Velasco, and editors Cat Harris and Ted Raviv — colleagues from my time at Florentine Films. We created this film with limited resources but enormous care. More than anything, I hope audiences leave "Black Knights" feeling inspired by these six men and reminded that our deepest strength often comes not from individual achievement, but from the people who stand beside us through every chapter of our lives.