Burning Cane

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Movie
Original title Burning Cane
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 2019
length 77 minutes
Rod
Director Phillip Youmans
script Phillip Youmans
production Ojo Akinlana ,
Karen Kaia Livers ,
Mose Mayer ,
Wendell Pierce ,
Isaac Webb ,
Cassandra Youmans
music Kevin Gullage
camera Phillip Youmans
cut Ruby Kline ,
Phillip Youmans
occupation

Burning Cane is a film drama directed by Phillip Youmans , which premiered on April 25, 2019 at the Tribeca Film Festival and was shown in selected US cinemas from October 25, 2019.

action

In the sugar cane fields in Louisiana, a mother is torn between her religious beliefs and her love for her son.

production

Directed by Phillip Youmans , who also wrote the script, acted as cameraman and acted as one of the film editors alongside Ruby Kline . It is Youmans' feature film debut. He was only 17 when he finished working on Burning Cane with New Orleans actor Wendell Pierce in the lead role after leaving high school . He plays Reverend Tillman, while Karen Kaia Livers stars as single mother Helen Wayne. Dominique McClellan plays her son Daniel.

According to the director, the main inspiration for the film were the stories and personal experiences he had gathered as a child in the Southern Baptist Church in their hometown. He wanted to talk about the role of the church in its community, which on the one hand can be seen as a beacon of hope, but at the same time is a divisive institution that prevents paralyzing vices of the community from being addressed. Despite his ideological differences from the godly people he grew up with, he never wanted to demonize them or their beliefs: “I tried to humanize their experiences, and as a result I developed a nuanced understanding of the hypocrisy and erroneous views I've struggled with for years. ”His mother and most of his family grew up in rural South Carolina under a very fundamentalist interpretation of Protestantism, and that was how he and his sister were raised.

Although there were cultural aspects of the church that he valued, there was also a hypocrisy that he could not accept. Youmans says he has always had an appreciation for the communal nature of the church and knows why it is an important institution for people in their community whose lives are often difficult and for whom emotional escape of any kind is an important part of survival . He also always loved gospel music. According to Youmans, his identity as an artist was shaped by the two most exciting experiences of his life. On the one hand, this was the detachment from the Baptist Church and, on the other hand, the time he spent with the members of the Black Panther Party representation in New Orleans, where he met Malik Rahim , who had been doing voluntary work on housing projects and programs for criminal offenses for years African American engaged. Youmans said he wanted to tell down-to-earth, multidimensional black stories, even though his creative identity wasn't always determined by his skin color.

Filming took place in New Orleans and Thibodaux, Louisiana from July 2017, while Youmans was still revising the script. The production design comes from Ojo Akinlana , with whom Youmans had already worked for his short film Nairobi .

The film premiered on April 25, 2019 at the Tribeca Film Festival . There the 19-year-old director was awarded the Founders Award , the main prize of the festival. This makes Youmans the first African American director to receive this award and the youngest to present a film at the Tribeca Film Festival. At the Venice International Film Festival in late August and early September 2019, it was shown out of competition as part of the Venice Days . A first trailer was presented at the end of September 2019. In early October 2019 he was presented at the London Film Festival . The cinema release in the USA took place on October 25, 2019 in selected theaters.

In addition to the main actor Pierce and the production designer Akinlana, Phillip Youmans himself, his mother Cassandra , Karen Kaia Livers, who can be seen in the role of Helen Wayne in the film, Mose Mayer , co-producer of Youmans' first short film Ivory , and Isaac acted as producers Webb , a media arts teacher at the Center for Creative Arts in New Orleans he attended . The actual filming was financed by a crowdfunding campaign via the Indiegogo website and by the funds raised by the producers. Youmans also sacrificed all of his and his family's savings.

reception

Reviews

So far, the film has won over 89 percent of all Rotten Tomatoes critics and received an average rating of 7.6 out of a possible 10 points.

Screen International's Stephen Whitty wonders , if a young director can do this on a budget, what will he do with a bigger one?

Awards and nominations

Black Reel Awards 2020

Gotham Awards 2019

  • Nomination for Best Young Director (Phillip Youmans)

Independent Spirit Awards 2020

Satellite Awards 2019

Seattle International Film Festival 2019

  • Nomination as best feature film for the Futurewave Youth Jury Award (Phillip Youmans)
  • Nomination in the New American Cinema Competition (Phillip Youmans)

Tribeca Film Festival 2019

  • Received the Founders Award for Best Narrative Feature (Phillip Youmans)
  • Award for Best Actor - Narrative Feature Film US (Wendell Pierce)
  • Award for Best Cinematography - US Narrative Feature Film (Phillip Youmans)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Jake Coyle: 19-year-old director wins top award at Tribeca Film Festival. In: Business Insider, May 3, 2019.
  2. ↑ a b Phillip Youmans: What It Means to Humanize. In: talkhouse.com, April 24, 2019.
  3. ↑ a b c Tambay Obenson: How a 19-Year-Old From New Orleans Made the Most Exciting Black Film So Far This Year. In: indiewire.com, May 2, 2019.
  4. ↑ Hunter Harris: The Tribeca Film Festival Just Gave Its Biggest Award to a 19-Year-Old. In: Vulture, May 4, 2019.
  5. ↑ 19-Year Old Director Wins Top Award at Tribeca Film Festival. In: The Washington Post, May 4, 2019.
  6. ↑ Jamie Broadnax: Congrats to 19-Year-Old Filmmaker Phillip Youman's Sweeping Film Awards at Tribeca. In: blackgirlnerds.com, May 2, 2019.
  7. ↑ Nick Vivarelli: Transgender Immigrant Pic 'Lingua Franca', Thriller 'Only Beasts' to Bow at Venice Days. In: Variety, July 23, 2019.
  8. ↑ https://deadline.com/video/burning-cane-trailer-phillip-youmans-wendell-pierce-array-releasing-ava-duvernay/
  9. ↑ 63rd BFI London Film Festival program announced. In: bfi.org.uk, August 29, 2019.
  10. ↑ Burning Cane. In: Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved November 8, 2019.
  11. ↑ Stephen Whitty, 'Burning Cane' Tribeca Review. In: screendaily.com, April 29, 2019.
  12. ^ Wilson Morales: 20th Annual Black Reel Awards - Nominees Announced. In: blackfilm.com, December 11, 2019.
  13. ↑ Joey Nolfi: Uncut Gems, Lighthouse lead 2020 Film Independent Spirit Award nominations. In: Entertainment Weekly, November 21, 2019.
  14. ^ Karen M. Peterson: 24th Satellite Awards Announce Nominations, 'Ford v Ferrari' Leads the Way. In: awardscircuit.com, December 3, 2019.
  15. ↑ Here are the Winners of the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival's Juried Awards. In: tribecafilm.com. Retrieved May 4, 2019.
  16. ^ Tribeca film awards for German co-production. In: Deutschlandfunk Kultur, May 3, 2019.