There’s ambition, then there’s execution. Ava DuVernay’s 2023 film, Origin, grapples with a subject that has been relevant since forever: casteism. And what DuVernay has attempted to do here is something that you wouldn’t see every day: capture a global issue while telling the deeply personal story of an individual. The film follows the journey of Isabell Wilkerson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who wrote her award-winning book Caste: The Origin of Our Discontents. But it is not just some book. It also tells the story of the writer herself, who suffers as many as three tragedies, which, in a way, lays the foundation of her book as a kind of coping mechanism. Sadly, it doesn’t quite translate on the 70 mm, as Origin fails to evoke the kind of emotion it was looking for. It does have some strong moments, but most of it feels rather gimmicky...
- 3/20/2024
- by Rohitavra Majumdar
- Film Fugitives
The first episode of “61st Street” lays the foundation for a story that’s become all too familiar on television and in reality alike. Over eight episodes, AMC’s new drama (executive produced by Michael B. Jordan) depicts the before, during, and frantic after of a Chicago drug bust that ends in two deaths: Rufus (Kevin Tre’von Patterson), a Black teen with deep roots in the community, and Offer Mike Rossi (Patrick Mulvey), who had been quietly investigating his precinct for corruption before this fateful day. While the cops call Rufus’ death an open and shut case of an officer defending himself, they pin Rossi’s on Moses Johnson (Tosin Cole), a promising track star caught in the wrong place at the wrong time while trying to get his brother Joshua (Bentley Green) home, before an accidental brush with Rossi sent the cop’s head into a protruding pipe, killing him almost instantly.
- 4/8/2022
- by Caroline Framke
- Variety Film + TV
A little girl not named Grace sits quietly at the center of Barry Jenkins’ “The Underground Railroad.” Introduced in the third episode holding a finger to her lips, “Grace” — played by Mychal-Bella Bowman and whose real name constitutes a minor yet precious spoiler — has been hiding in a cramped attic for many, many months, waiting for the real, operational, underground railroad to whisk her out of North Carolina and into safer, less confined spaces. Grace isn’t the show’s lead, or even one of the leads, though she does cross paths with Cora (Thuso Mbedu), the chief protagonist and most seasoned traveler, when the grown runaway crawls into Grace’s stooped refuge, seeking similar concealment from the malevolent forces out for them both.
Like so much of the Amazon Prime Video limited series, Grace blends literal and figurative interpretations; she’s a flesh-and-blood character and an ethereal embodiment of...
Like so much of the Amazon Prime Video limited series, Grace blends literal and figurative interpretations; she’s a flesh-and-blood character and an ethereal embodiment of...
- 5/12/2021
- by Ben Travers
- Indiewire
Exclusive: The Gotham Group, which most recently produced Disney+’s Stargirl based on the bestselling novel, has made its latest book deal. It has optioned Christina Hammonds Reed’s upcoming debut Ya novel The Black Kids, setting Rafiki helmer Wanuri Kahiu to direct and Allison Davis to adapt it.
The novel, to be published September 1 via Simon & Schuster, is a coming-of-age story of a wealthy African-American teenager whose family gets caught in the vortex of the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
Kahiu’s previous film Rafiki was banned in her native Kenya for a time ahead of its world premiere at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival, where it made history as the first Kenyan film selected. It explored Lgbtq issues in a country that criminalizes homosexual acts between consenting adults.
The film’s success helped Kahiu land gigs in the U.S. Now managed by Gotham Group, she is also set to...
The novel, to be published September 1 via Simon & Schuster, is a coming-of-age story of a wealthy African-American teenager whose family gets caught in the vortex of the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
Kahiu’s previous film Rafiki was banned in her native Kenya for a time ahead of its world premiere at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival, where it made history as the first Kenyan film selected. It explored Lgbtq issues in a country that criminalizes homosexual acts between consenting adults.
The film’s success helped Kahiu land gigs in the U.S. Now managed by Gotham Group, she is also set to...
- 1/28/2020
- by Patrick Hipes
- Deadline Film + TV
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