50 Plus 2018 Films Either Produced, Directed By Or Featuring Black Talent In Prominent Roles Part 3Posted by Wilson Morales
January 12, 2018
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The following are a list of films that are completed, with some slated to appear at festivals such as Sundance. If All goes well, a good majority of these films will be picked up a distributor and released this year.
Sorry To Bother You
Director: Boots Riley
Screenwriter: Boots Riley
Producers: Nina Yang Bongiovi, Forest Whitaker, Charles King, George Rush, Jonathan Duffy, Kelly Williams
Starring: Lakeith Stanfield, Tessa Thompson, Steven Yeun, Jermaine Fowler, Armie Hammer, Omari Hardwick
Cassius Green (Lakeith Stanfield), a 30-something black telemarketer with self-esteem issues, discovers a magical selling power living inside of him. Suddenly he’s rising up the ranks to the elite team of his company, which sells heinous products and services. The upswing in Cassius’s career raises serious red flags with his brilliant girlfriend, Detroit (Tessa Thompson), a sign-twirling gallery artist who is secretly a part of a Banksy-style collective called Left Eye. But the unimaginable hits the fan when Cassius meets the company’s cocaine-snorting, orgy-hosting, obnoxious, and relentlessly optimistic CEO, Steve Lift (Armie Hammer).
A Boy, A Girl, A Dream.
Director: Qasim Basir
Screenwriter: Qasim Basir
Producer: Datari Turner
Starring: Omari Hardwick, Meagan Good, Jay Ellis, Dijon Talton, Wesley Jonathan, and Kenya Barris
Cass (Omari Hardwick), a handsome USC grad stalled in his career, is getting lost in the alcohol- and drug-infused world of LA club promotion. On the night of the 2016 presidential election, he meets Frida (Meagan Good), a beautiful, spirited midwestern visitor dealing with a difficult breakup. Their chemistry is undeniable. Nothing will ever be the same again.
Yardie
Director: Idris Elba
Screenwriters: Brock Norman Brock and Martin Stellman
Producer: Gina Carter and Robin Gutch
Starring: Aml Ameen, Shantol Jackson, Stephen Graham, Fraser James, Sheldon Shepherd, Everaldo Cleary
On a hot night in Kingston, Jamaica, 1973, Jerry Dread stops the music at an outdoor party to encourage a truce between warring gangs. His little brother Denis looks on from the crowd as an assassin’s bullet rings out, taking Jerry’s life. A decade later, Denis is the right-hand man to gang boss Fox, who sends him on a loyalty-testing mission to London. But when the mission goes wrong, Denis hides out with an old flame and decides to find his brother’s killer.
Monster
Director: Anthony Mandler
Screenwriter: Radha Blank, Cole Wiley, Janece Shaffer
Producers: Tonya Lewis Lee, Nikki Silver, Aaron L. Gilbert, Mike Jackson, Edward Tyler Nahem
Starring: Kelvin Harrison Jr., Jeffrey Wright, Jennifer Hudson, Rakim Mayers, Jennifer Ehle, Tim Blake Nelson
Steve Harmon, a bright, sensitive 17-year-old, stands trial for acting as a lookout during the lethal armed robbery of a Harlem bodega. Before his arrest, he was an honors student and aspiring filmmaker taking street-level snapshots and on-the-fly footage of neighborhood life. Now, Steve is seen as just another young black criminal, assumed guilty and labeled a monster. But Steve and his lawyer declare his innocence and attempt to defy the odds in a bid to win his freedom.
Adapted from the award-winning young adult novel by Walter Dean Myers, Monster methodically details how an inquisitive outsider found himself inside of a system stacked against him.
Monsters and Men
Director: Reinaldo Marcus Gree
Screenwriter: Reinaldo Marcus Green
Producers: Elizabeth Lodge Stepp, Josh Penn, Eddie Vaisman, Julia Lebedev, Luca Borghese
Cast: John David Washington, Anthony Ramos, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Chanté Adams, Nicole Beharie, Rob Morgan
One night, in front of a bodega in Brooklyn’s Bed–Stuy neighborhood, Manny Ortega witnesses a white police officer wrongfully gun down a neighborhood street hustler, and Manny films the incident on his phone. Now he’s faced with a dilemma: release the video and bring unwanted exposure to himself and his family, or keep the video private and be complicit in the injustice?
The film is told through the eyes of the bystander who filmed the act, an African-American police officer and a high-school baseball phenom inspired to take a stand.
Come Sunday
Director: Joshua Marston
Screenwriter: Marcus Hinchey
Producers: Ira Glass, AlissaShipp, Julie Goldstein, James Stern, Lucas Smith, Cindy Kirven
Starring: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Danny Glover, Condola Rashad, Jason Segel, Lakeith Stanfield, Martin Sheen
Every Sunday, Bishop Carlton Pearson—evangelical megastar, brilliant orator, and television host with millions of followers—preaches the fundamentalist gospel to six thousand supplicants at his Higher Dimensions Church. He’s the pride and joy of his spiritual father, Oral Roberts, and the toast of Tulsa. One day, rattled by an uncle’s suicide and distraught by reports of the Rwandan Genocide, Pearson receives an epiphany. Suddenly it’s crystal clear—God loves all humankind; everyone is already saved, whether Christian or not; and there is no hell. But these ideas are heretical, violating sacrosanct doctrines.
Hearts Beat Loud
Director: Brett Haley
Screenwriters: Brett Haley, Marc Basch
Producers: Houston King, Sam Bisbee, Sam Slater
Starring: Nick Offerman, Kiersey Clemons, Ted Danson, Sasha Lane, Blythe Danner, Toni Collette
As single dad Frank (Nick Offerman) prepares to send hardworking daughter Sam (Kiersey Clemons) off to UCLA pre-med, he also reluctantly realizes he has to accept that his own record-store business is failing. Hoping to stay connected with his daughter through their shared love of music, he urges her to turn their weekly “jam sesh” into an actual band. Channeling Sam’s resistance into a band name, they unexpectedly find We’re Not a Band’s first song turning into a minor Spotify hit, and they use their songwriting efforts to work through their feelings about the life changes each of them faces
Blindspotting
Director: Carlos Lopez Estrada
Screenwriters: Rafael Casal, Daveed Diggs
Producers: Keith Calder, Jess Calder, Rafael Casal, Daveed Diggs
Starring: Daveed Diggs, Rafael Casal, Janina Gavankar, Jasmine Cephas Jones
Collin is trying to make it through his final days of probation for an infamous arrest he can’t wait to put behind him. Always by his side is his fast-talking childhood bestie, Miles, who has a knack for finding trouble. They grew up together in the notoriously rough Oakland, a.k.a. “The Town,” which has become the new trendy place to live in the rapidly gentrifying Bay Area. But when Collin’s chance for a fresh start is interrupted by a life-changing missed curfew, his friendship with Miles is forced out of its comfortable buddy-comedy existence, and the Bay boys are set on a spiraling collision course with each other.
Where Hands Touch
Director: Amma Asante
Screenwriter: Amma Asante
Producer: Charlie Hanson
Starring: Amnadla Stenberg, George MacKay, Abbie Cornish, Christopher Eccleston and Tom Sweet
Fifteen-year-old Leyna (Stenberg), daughter of a white German mother and a black father, meets Lutz (MacKay), the son of a prominent SS officer, and a member of the Hitler Youth. “They fall helplessly in love, putting their lives at risk as all around them the persecution of Jews and those deemed ‘non-pure’ slowly unfolds,” according to a statement. “Does their love stand a chance amidst violence and hatred?”
Cut Throat City
Director: RZA
Screenwriter: P.G. Cuscheri
Producer: Elliott Michael Smith, Michael Mendelsohn, William Clevinger, Kyle Tekiela, Sean Lydiard, Film Wealth, and RZA
Starring: Terrence Howard, Wesley Snipes, Eiza Gonzalez, Tip ‘T.I.’ Harris, Demetrius Shipp Jr., Shameik Moore, Rob Morgan, Joel David Moore, Kat Graham, Isaiah Washington, Keean Johnson, & Denzel Whitake
The film centers on four boyhood friends who return to New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward after Hurricane Katrina, to find their home decimated and prospects for work swept away. Turning to a local gangster for employment, the crew is hired to pull off a daring casino heist, right in the heart of the city.
Sweetheart
Director: JD Dillard
Screenwriter: JD Dillard, Alex Theurer and Alex Hyner
Producer: Blumhouse Productions
Starring: Kiersey Clemons and Emory Cohen
No information as been given about the film other than it’s being described as a survival-horror pic. The script is 68 pages. And it is purely an exercise in tone and terror.
Farming
Director: Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje
Screenwriter: Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje
Producers: Michael London, Janice Williams, Francois Ivernel, Charles de Rosen, Miranda Ballesteros, and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje
Starring: Kate Beckinsale, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, and Damson Idris
The film chronicles Akinnuoye-Agbaje’s own coming-of-age story growing up fostered by a white working class family in the U.K. Idris, star of John Singelton’s upcoming FX series “Snowfall,” will play the lead. Beckinsale will portray his foster mother, a stern, hard-loving, and, at times, self-serving woman. Mbatha-Raw portrays a benevolent teacher who offers him one last chance at redemption.
Brian Banks
Director: Tom Shadyac
Screenwriter: Doug Atchison
Producer: Amy Baer, Shivani Rawat and Monica Levinson
Starring: Aldis Hodge, Greg Kinner, Dorian Missick, Sherri Shepherd, Tiffany Dupont, Matt Battaglia
The biopic tells the story of Banks (Hodge), an All-American high school football player committed to USC by his junior year whose life was upended in 2002 when he was falsely accused of rape. Despite maintaining his innocence, Banks was railroaded through the system and sentenced to a decade of prison and parole.
With the help of the California Innocence Project, spearheaded by Justin Brooks (Kinnear), the criminal defense attorney and CIP co-founder, Banks’ conviction was overturned in 2012. He briefly played with the Atlanta Falcons in the 2013 preseason. Shepherd will portray Banks’ mother, Leomia, who was the glue that kept Banks together during his trial. Also cast in the film are Dorian Missick, who will play an officer who treats Banks with contempt before he realizes he may have been railroaded. Tiffany Dupont will portray the role of Alissa Bjerkhoel, a junior lawyer at the California Innocence Project who, along with other associates, finds Brian’s long, handwritten letter in the mailroom and becomes deeply committed to his cause.
Fast Color
Director: Julia Hart
Screenwriter: Julia Hart and Jordan Horowitz
Producer: Mickey Liddell and Pete Shilaimon and Jordan Horowitz
Starring: Gugu Mbatha-Raw, David Strathairn, Lorraine Toussaint, Saniyya Sidney and Christopher Denham
Mbatha-Raw plays Ruth, a woman who is forced to go on the run when her superhuman abilities are discovered. Now, years after having abandoned her family, the only place she has left to hide is home. Toussaint will play Bo, Ruth’s mother. Strathairn is Ellis, the sheriff of the small town where Ruth grew up. Sidney stars as Lila, Ruth’s daughter, while Denham will portray Bill, leader of the rogue government organization determined to capture Ruth.
A Girl From Mogadishu
Director: Mary McGuckian
Screenwriter: Pembridge Pictures and Umedia
Producer: Mickey Liddell and Pete Shilaimon and Jordan Horowitz
Starring: Aja Naomi King, Martha Cango Antonio, Barkhad Abdi, Maryam Mursals
The female empowerment film is a true story based on the testimony of Ifrah Ahmed, who — having escaped war-torn Somalia — emerged as one of the world’s foremost international activists against gender based violence.
Ahmed was born into a refugee camp in Somalia in 2006 and emigrated to Ireland as a teenager. Recounting her traumatic childhood experiences of female genital mutilation when applying for refugee status, she is re-traumatized and vows to devote her life to the eradication of the practice — taking her campaign all the way to the President of Ireland and finally to the European Parliament and United Nations.
Jinn
Director: Nijla Mu’min
Screenwriter: Nijla Mu’min
Producer: Avril Speaks, Kady Kamakate, Nijla Mu’min
Starring: Zoe Renee, Simone Missick, Kelvin Harrison Jr, Hisham Tawfiq, Dorian Missick, Kelly Jenrette, Damien D. Smith
Summer (Zoe Renee) is a carefree, black teenage Instagram celebrity whose world turns upside down when her mother abruptly converts to Islam and becomes a different person. At first resistant to the faith, she begins to reevaluate her identity after becoming attracted to a Muslim classmate, crossing the thin line between physical desire and piety.
Juanita
Director: Clark Johnson
Screenwriter: Roderick M. Spencer (Ms. Woodward’s husband)
Producer: Stephanie Allain, Jason Michael Berman and Mel Jones
Starring: Alfre Woodard, Blair Underwood, Adam Beach, LaTanya Richardson and Marcus Henderson
Based on the novel “Dancing on the Edge of the Roof” by Sheila Williams, Woodard will play Juanita, a hard-working nursemaid from Columbus, Ohio, whose grown kids still depend on her for everything. Underwood appears as himself as a fantasy in her dreams — and when he asks for a loan, she hops on a Greyhound Bus and heads into the mountains of Montana, where she reinvents herself with a new job, a new circle of friends, and an unexpected new love.
Green Dolphin
Director: Chris Kenneally
Screenwriter: Chris Kenneally
Producer: Russell Geyser, Jordan Yale Levine, Jordan Beckerman, and Shruti Ganguly
Starring: Justine Skye, Tyler Dean Flores and Seann William Scott
Green Dolphin follows 15-year-old Robinson (Flores) and 20-year-old Keesha (Skye) as they venture cross-country in an attempt to escape the grasp of abusive foster parent and drug-dealer Martin (Scott). When they break down midway, Keesha and Robinson discover a new family that could turn their lives around.
R&B singer-songwriter Skye makes her feature debut with the project. Signed to Roc Nation Records, Skye most recently released the EP 8 Ounces and is currently working on her debut album.
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