Wildfires burned around the Yellowstone caldera in the summer of 2021, casting an eerie cloud of smoke over the midday sun. Below—on the charcoal, asphalt ribbon of U.S. Highway 191— a red Ford pickup truck and an ebony Toyota SUV lumbered south, carrying the predominantly Black film crew of “Outside Ain’t Free.”

On that summer day five years ago, the Wyoming countryside seemed cast in a red, Martian glow. It was a foreshadowing of unexpected events to come on a half-decade journey to create “Outside Ain’t Free.”

The concept? Document a summer camping trip from Montana to Memphis with the goal of inspiring more Black and brown people to carve out their own spaces in America’s outdoors. In an outdoor film scene dominated by narratives of man versus nature, this story would be about men and women rediscovering a natural world that their ancestors knew well. “Outside Ain’t Free” would be less about bagging peaks and more about packing bags to explore the healing power that nature can bring to underrepresented communities in the outdoor space.

Conceived by photojournalist and filmmaker Malik Martin, better known as Malik Tha Martian, the “Outside Ain’t Free” documentary would lay a keystone in a larger movement transcending cinema.

By the time the film crew set up camp for the night on the outskirts of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, the plan was already beginning to splinter. The smoke clouds hanging over Yellowstone were joined by thunderstorms, intense rainfall and technical hurdles that would forever alter Martin’s plan.

This summer, the work of Martin’s film crew is coming to light. Far from the outdoor film festival circuit, the completed, 50-minute documentary “Outside Ain’t Free” is set to touchdown in majority Black cities across America this summer. Forgoing the bright lights of Telluride’s Mountain Film Festival, “Outside Ain’t Free” will be screened in community centers, libraries, climbing gyms and gathering spaces in cities like Oakland, Detroit, Chicago and Memphis.

Martin says bringing the film and its movement to the audiences most served by its message is breathing new life into his original vision.

“Historically, I have made extremely Black films that Black people don’t get to enjoy," Martin says. "By that, I mean the distribution companies that I work with or the production houses may have dedicated fanbases, but their fan bases aren’t the people who need to ingest this film.

“I am intentionally going to cultural hubs like local climbing gyms in Oakland or community centers in Memphis. We are having showings at the Memphis Slim House in Soulsville. We want to do a screening at the National Civil Rights Museum downtown. I plan on going to a community center on the South Side of Chicago and inviting kids from the surrounding areas to watch this, because when we talk about representation—yeah, it feels good to see somebody who looks like you doing stuff—but it doesn’t do the hood no good if I’m on the cover of Outside Magazine and they don’t subscribe. It don’t do the hood no good when I’m working with YETI and they can’t afford the cups they make.”

By taking his film to Black neighborhoods and Black audiences across the country, Martin hopes to both figuratively and physically bring the outdoor industry to them. He’ll screen the film, hand out (sponsored) YETI cups and talk to young people about his own journey as student living in a tent near Arkansas State University to a fully-fledged outdoor filmmaker, snowboarder and mountain climber.

Little Rock, Arkansas-raised producer Neiagha Thomas says success of “Outside Ain’t Free” will be measured in the audiences in touches rather than festival trophies. For Thomas, the film represents a community experience and a conversation starter rather than pure entertainment. “Instead of asking people to come into an industry space or get the money to have access to those spaces, we are meeting them where they are in the communities we grew up in. That creates opportunity for genuine connection and reflection that can get lost in the traditional industry model of what it’s meant to be a part of something, such as a festival.

“My hope is that the film sparks conversations among everyone who recognizes themselves in this film or on the screen."

In Wyoming—three days into their filmmaking journey—the trip had already started paying off for the film crew. After collecting to the keys to the pickup in Bozeman, Montana, the “Outside Ain’t Free” crew had already successfully spent the night in grizzly country, come face-to-face with bison in Yellowstone’s Lamar Valley. They’d paused for pictures beside the gurgling geysers of America’s first national park and percolated campsite coffee at sunrise.

For cinematographer Delvron “1Dot” Gray, the project was his very first foray into the American west. The Coast Guard veteran who cut his teeth conducting search and rescue missions on the Mississippi River documented the first mountains he’d ever seen in real-time, learned to pitch a camping tent in real time and learned to blend the energy of Memphis rap albums from Project Pat and Young Dolph with the contrast of some of America’s most remote landscapes. “People literally download an app to hear the sounds we heard at night," says Gray. "That kind of peace is next level.”

"The mountains have been a refuge and a getaway over the years. At times, they weren’t always safe themselves. But being from Memphis, exchanging one environment for another has been paramount in me finding myself and being able to breathe.”

The Outside Ain’t Free film tour is scheduled to run through July and August of 2026. Official tour stops, new cities and screening times will be announced via Martin’s social media outlets throughout the summer.