At last night Urbanworld Film Festival, Blackfilm.com’s Nasser Metcalfe spoke with writer-director Deborah Riley Draper and actress Jasmine Guy and Natalie Lymor on the short film, Illegal Rose.
Rose, a nurse on her way home from a long shift, stops by a convenience store to get her sleeping pills and accidentally kidnaps, Sylvie, a spunky 9-year-old runway from an Immigration Detention Center. The two women change each others lives and perspectives in one afternoon on the Fourth of July. The film challenges us to see kindness, decency and immigration from a different lens and consider no human being is ever illegal.
Deborah Riley Draper is a compelling filmmaker and brand consultant. Draper co-wrote and directed “Illegal Rose”, a 2019 short film about immigration starring Jasmine Guy and Lucca Rodriguez-Pedraza. Draper’s next project is “Coffee Will Make You Black”, which is produced by Octavia Spencer and Tate Taylor. Draper penned the screenplay and will direct the coming-of-age adaptation set in 1960’s Chicago. Her previous films include NAACP Image Awards nominee “Olympic Pride, American Prejudice” and “Versailles ’73.”
Video by Mann Robinson
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