“I already had my troubles for today, so I can’t worry about tomorrow,” states Daniel, one of the protagonists in award-winning photographer RaMell Ross’s inspired and intimate portrait of a place and its people. Set in an African American community in rural Alabama where the director moved to coach basketball in 2009, the film captures small, but nevertheless precious, moments in black lives—church services, a toddler running circles, an eclipse—with rapturous attention. “It’s not every day that you witness a new cinematic language being born, but watching . . . Hale County This Morning, This Evening qualifies. The director . . . knew the subjects of his documentary for several years before deciding to create a film around them. The finished work, a half decade in the making, is informed by his deep familiarity with its characters, which might be one reason why he has the confidence to abandon traditional narrative structures and strike out on his own lyrical path” (Bilge Ebiri, Village Voice).