Sony Pictures Animation is partnering with director Matthew A. Cherry to release his film, Hair Love.
Co-directed by Cherry and Everett Downing, Hair Love raised $300,000 on Kickstarter back in 2017. That’s the most any short film, animated or not, has ever achieved on the funding platform.
Hair Love, is a 5 minute animated short film that centers around the relationship between an African-American father, Stephen, his daughter, Zuri and her hair. Despite having long locks, Stephen has been used to his wife doing his daughter’s hair, so when she is unavailable right before a big event, Stephen will have to figure it out on his own. This sounds simple enough, but we soon come to find that Zuri’s hair has a mind of its own.
“It was important to get this story out there and we are so grateful to Sony Pictures Animation for their generous support in helping us make that happen,” Cherry himself noted of the deal and roll-out plan. “They have championed it from its early stages and we cannot wait to share the project with the world.”
Produced by Toliver, Cherry, Stacey Newton and Monica A. Young, Hair Love also sees Frank Abney and Peter Ramsey, who served as a director on SPA’s Oscar-winning Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, as EPs.
“In the past year, it has been very clear that audiences have been yearning to see fresh stories that are universal and culturally authentic,” says SPA President Kristine Belson of the Cherry written and co-helmed pic focusing on an African-American dad being put in charge of doing his little girl’s hair for the first time. “Hair Love is a wonderful father-daughter story and we are proud to nurture talented young filmmakers like Matthew who are breaking new ground,” the exec added.
Hair Love will also see life as book to be published by Kokila Books/Penguin Random House on May 14.
Cherry, who served as an executive producer on BlacKkKlansman, has also directed TV episodes of Whiskey Cavalier and The Red Line. He also directed The Last Fall starring Lance Gross and Nicole Beharie.
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