Exclusive: WME has signed writer-director Merawi Gerima and cinematographer Mark Jeevaratnam for representation in all areas. Gerima and Jeevaratnam are part of the filmmaking team behind Residue, a feature film that premiered at this year’s Slamdance Film Festival and was a 2020 Venice Film Festival selection.
Gerima wrote, directed, and produced the drama– his debut feature — which follows aspiring filmmaker Jay (Obinna Nwachukwu) who returns to his neighborhood in Washington, D.C. — but it looks different. It is gentrified beyond recognition. Dealing with alienation from his friends, troubled by the disappearance of a loved one and unsure of his place in this new community, Jay confronts issues of identity, isolation and loss on a tumultuous personal journey.
Residue was named one of the New Yorker’s best films of 2020 and was picked up for distribution by Ava DuVernay’s Array label.
Gerima, who has an Mfa degree from USC School of Cinematic Arts,...
Gerima wrote, directed, and produced the drama– his debut feature — which follows aspiring filmmaker Jay (Obinna Nwachukwu) who returns to his neighborhood in Washington, D.C. — but it looks different. It is gentrified beyond recognition. Dealing with alienation from his friends, troubled by the disappearance of a loved one and unsure of his place in this new community, Jay confronts issues of identity, isolation and loss on a tumultuous personal journey.
Residue was named one of the New Yorker’s best films of 2020 and was picked up for distribution by Ava DuVernay’s Array label.
Gerima, who has an Mfa degree from USC School of Cinematic Arts,...
- 12/16/2020
- by Amanda N'Duka
- Deadline Film + TV
Upon his return home from California, Jay (Obi Nwachukwu) glides through his old neighborhood of NoMa, Washington, D.C. He makes small talk with old acquaintances—the neighbors, the guys on the corner, the old trio sitting on a stoop. It’s when he walks on by, however, that everyone else’s actions carry on. The camera holds on the locals, not so much Jay. The words say more about a collective routine, not so much about Jay himself. He says he’s come back to take notes for a movie he’s developing, but based on the questions he asks, it’s like he’s trying to propel a stream of consciousness.
And that stream of consciousness is dreamlike. In his debut, director Merawi Gerima skates between the past and present with laidback confidence, forging memories from what Jay is at a constant risk of forgetting. Whether those memories...
And that stream of consciousness is dreamlike. In his debut, director Merawi Gerima skates between the past and present with laidback confidence, forging memories from what Jay is at a constant risk of forgetting. Whether those memories...
- 9/17/2020
- by Matt Cipolla
- The Film Stage
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