Malia Obama’s Nike Ad Is ‘Shockingly Similar’ to Sundance 2024 Short, Filmmaker Says

Malia Obama and Nike were accused by filmmaker Natalie Jasmine Harris Monday of taking uncredited inspiration from her short film “Grace” for the sports brand’s new Obama-directed campaign ad with A’ja Wilson.

The short film — “a dramatic Black Southern Gothic,” per the filmmaker — screened at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, the same year Obama screened her directorial debut, “The Heart.”

The portion of “Grace” in question involves two young Black women in the 1950s sitting on the front steps of their home, laughing and clapping while playing a hand game. The new Nike ad features WNBA star Wilson doing the same — in present day — with a young girl. Additionally, portions of the ad’s composition appear to echo Harris’ short, including the use of the homes’ front doors as a framing device for the two pairs. The color of the film grain in both projects are also visibly alike — all of which Harris shared on social media Monday with video clips and screen stills of both her short and the ad.

“Been sitting with this for a while. My Sundance short film ‘Grace’ (shot brilliantly by Tehillah de Castro) was made with deep love and care. The social cut of the new Nike commercial directed by Malia Obama (who was also at Sundance my year) feels shockingly similar to my work,” Harris initially wrote on X.

“I know art often overlaps, but moments like this hit hard when you’ve poured your heart into telling stories with care and barely get the recognition you deserve,” the filmmaker wrote in a second X post, tagging Nike and Wilson. “If brands want a certain look, why not hire from the source instead of for name recognition?”

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A post shared by Natalie Jasmine Harris (@nataliejasmineharris)

Early Tuesday, Harris cross-posted her X sentiments on Instagram, along with more stills from both projects and a photo of her and Obama from Sundance last year.

“I don’t have much else to say, besides that this is quite disheartening and disappointing,” she captioned the post. “I’m constantly posting about how difficult it is to be an emerging filmmaker right now and sustain myself without benefitting from family connections, generational wealth, or nepotism… and then to see this just really gives me even less hope that this industry wants me to be here.”

Representatives for Obama and Nike did not respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.

The Nike ad is part of Wilson’s campaign for her hot-ticketed A’One Nike shoes, which sold out this week just minutes after becoming available.

In her official Sundance synopsis of “Grace,” Harris described the project as follows: “‘Grace’ is a dramatic Black Southern Gothic and queer short film set in the 1950s that explores the conflicts that religious traditions and rites of passage often present in relation to identity formation. It’s a film about faith, hot combs, peach picking and summer love. It rewrites and rights the history validating that Queer Black women have always been here; thriving, existing and being.”

Obama’s Sundance 2024 short “The Heart,” for which she’s credited as Malia Ann, was described by the New York Times as centering on a “sensitive man racked with guilt when his mother dies after they have an argument.”

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