Dark and Tender: Healing Black Men with The CUT Project — The Evergreen Echo
Prentis Hemphill and Aaron Johnson on stage and in conversation at Seattle Public Library screening of “Dark and Tender” in April 2025.
Aaron Johnson’s ‘Dark and Tender’ new documentary challenges stereotypes by reclaiming tenderness — UW Daily
“I would like to bring … not just a counter [narrative], but a more accurate description of what Black bodies — and specifically here — Black masculine bodies can be, and actually are already in the world but rarely noticed and respected,” Johnson said.
The CUT Project has “…a map to the future of care” — South Seattle Emerald
The work is simple, but obviously very moving for the people involved. Throughout the film, the men share their own relationship to touch, trauma, and the effect this workshop had on them. For many, they see the project has a map to the future of care.
Touching documentary to get its debut at Port Townsend Film Festival — The Leader
“For every one image that you see of tender humanity between Black men, there are hundreds of thousands of hours of violence that are shown.”
“Dark and Tender” is a brief but vital conversation-starter — The Leader
As documentaries go, “Dark and Tender” is a brief but vital conversation-starter, and I eagerly await the dialogues and insights that Johnson might yield by continuing to explore this vein.
A Debut Film for Racial Healing Through Touch — The Seattle Medium
“It’s possible Black men can actually get together and let their guards down, and remove judgment and lean into those topics in a way that’s supportive, therapeutic, positive, inspirational,” Omega said. “I have never experienced that before.”