A Thousand and One
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Hits & Misses: How Six Sundance 2023 Titles Performed in Distribution
After nearly flatlining during the pandemic years, American independent film saw some signs of life in 2023. While optimists might call it a year of transition as the industry looks for new audiences and a new equilibrium, cynics see an unsustainable and contracting arthouse marketplace, with most producers and distributors increasingly unable to recoup. But, if you look at the fates of last year’s Sundance titles, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. For all the doom and gloom about the acquisitions market (“No one is buying films!”), 10 out of 12 films in this year’s Dramatic Competition […]
by Anthony Kaufman on Dec 15, 2023 -
One Step Ahead: Chinonye Chukwu Interviews A.V. Rockwell on A Thousand and One
The ever-changing landscape of New York City is the captivating, challenging backdrop of A Thousand and One, writer-director A.V. Rockwell’s feature debut. Chronicling a mother and son’s loving yet fraught relationship from 1993 through 2005, the film incorporates speeches and news reports detailing specific policies of mayors Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg across two decades, a device that serves as a concrete reminder of time passing and stakes rising for the film’s protagonists. Strict jaywalking laws, the advent of stop-and-frisk and increased gentrification initiatives become tangible perils that the Harlem-based characters must navigate, lest they lose the freedom they’ve worked […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Mar 16, 2023 -
Trailer Watch: A.V. Rockwell’s A Thousand and One
Featured on our 25 New Faces of Independent Film list in 2019, A.V. Rockwell‘s directorial debut A Thousand and One is set to hit theaters next month. The film had its world premiere at Sundance in January, where it won the U.S. Grand Jury Prize. Teyana Taylor stars as Inez, a single mom whose first objective after being released from Rikers is reuniting with her six-year-old son Terry, who has been placed in the foster care system. With no legal alternatives, Inez kidnaps Terry and utilizes her Harlem-based support system to lay low and begin anew. Over a decade later, […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Feb 23, 2023 -
“I Was Drawn to Harlem as a Character and How Gentrification Was Also an Antagonist”: DP Eric Yue on A Thousand and One
A.V. Rockwell’s feature debut A Thousand and One begins with Inez (Teyana Taylor) migrating between shelters during an intensely hot summer in ’90s-era New York City. Her 6-year-old son Terry is in foster care, and she makes the bold decision to kidnap him and discreetly live together again in Harlem. Years pass, and Terry (Josiah Cross) has grown into a shy but precocious teenager. However, the secret that the Inez has kept for a decade threatens to be revealed, meaning that the life she has built with her son could crumble at any moment. Cinematographer Eric Yue talks about how […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Feb 2, 2023 -
The Reopening Hunt: Resuming Production in a Time of COVID
Friday, March 13, 2020, two days after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic, Jamin O’Brien had a check in his hand. The producer was headed to christen a new venture, an adaptation of the nonfiction bestseller The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace to be directed by Chiwetel Ejiofor. “I was literally going to deliver the deposit check for our production offices, which were going to open Monday, when we were shut down,” says O’Brien. Now, a little more than a year later, O’Brien is preparing to navigate the world of post-COVID film production for the first […]
by Matt Mulcahey on Apr 8, 2021
