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The Martha’s Vineyard African American Film Festival (Mvaaf) has announced the opening lineup for its 23rd annual celebration, providing a platform for Black and brown filmmakers, taking place Aug. 1-9, 2025.

Kicking off the festivities on Aug. 1 will be a screening of the sports documentary Unraveling George. Directed by Mike Tollin and narrated by Marlon Wayans, who portrayed George Raveling in 2023’s Air, the film chronicles the notable journey of the Hall of Fame basketball coach known for guiding the careers of several all-star players, including Michael Jordan. A Color of Conversation will immediately follow the screening.

That evening, The Dutchman — starring André Holland, Kate Mara, Aldis Hodge, Stephen McKinley Henderson and Zazie Beetz — will be presented. The thriller about a successful Black man who finds himself in a psychological game of cat and mouse with a mysterious white woman is based on the 1964 Obie Award-winning play by Amiri Baraka...

There are homecomings, and then there are returns. The first suggests a warm embrace, a celebration of origin. The second implies a reckoning, a confrontation with a past self. In Qasim Basir’s To Live and Die and Live, we are thrown directly into the latter.

The film introduces us to Muhammad, a director who has ostensibly built a successful life in the sun-bleached, competitive ecosystem of Los Angeles. He returns to his hometown of Detroit for the somber occasion of his stepfather’s funeral, a man whose community standing was as solid as the buildings he helped erect.

Yet, Muhammad’s first actions are not those of a grieving son seeking solace. He sidesteps family and plunges directly into the city’s nocturnal underbelly, a disorienting blur of cocaine and liquor that immediately signals a deeper crisis. This is not a film about the linear stages of grief; it...

"We are here to live with everything you've got..." Samuel Goldwyn Films has revealed an official trailer for To Live and Die and Live, a unique indie film set in Detroit from filmmaker Qasim Basir. This initially premiered in 2023 at the Sundance Film Festival and will finally be released this year - starting in limited theaters this month. Muhammad returns home to Detroit to bury his stepfather and is thrust into settling his accounts, but Muhammad’s struggles with depression and addiction may finish him before he finishes the task. Muhammad has returned for the funeral, but his own battle with addiction, which he hides from the world, drives him to immediately fade away into the sultry, late-night, drug-saturated after-hours of Detroit and an equally intoxicating romantic relationship. One of the most stunning contemporary films shot in Detroit. Starring Amin Joseph as Muhammad, with Skye P. Marshall, Omari Hardwick, Cory Hardrict,...

Exclusive: Qasim Basir’s Sundance Film Festival feature To Live and Die and Live is getting a theatrical release on May 16 in AMC multiplexes from AuthentiQ Films & CinemaStreet Pictures.

Samuel Goldwyn Films picked up digital rights to the movie, which will land in the home later this year.

Basir’s feature, and ode to Detroit, was lauded by top critics at its Sundance Film Festival debut in 2023 with 89% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. Hollywood filmmaker Muhammad returns to his home city (Amin Joseph) to bury his stepfather and settle his accounts. But as he is thrust into old and new relationships his struggles with addiction and loss may finish him before he finishes the task.

The pic also stars Skye P. Marshall, Omari Hardwick, Cory Hardrict, Maryam Basir and Dana Gourrier. To Live and Die and Live is a AuthentiQ Films, Significant Productions, CinemaStreet Pictures and Confluential Films production. Producers are Nina Yang Bongiovi,...

André Holland continues his streak as one of the sharpest dramatic actors working today — and I’m not just talking about “Moonlight,” have you seen TV’s “The Knick”? — as a New York businessman in marital freefall in Andre Gaines’ “The Dutchman.” Gaines and co-writer Qasim Basir lift Amiri Baraka’s classic 1964 play out of its midcentury Civil Rights Movement context and transplant the text to present-day Manhattan, where Clay (Holland) is going mad over his wife Kaya’s (Zazie Beetz) recent admission of an infidelity.

So launches a dark night of the soul through the city that echoes “Eyes Wide Shut” — in which mysterious women also tempt a spiraling Tom Cruise over an evening after Nicole Kidman confesses to extramarital thoughts — and even “After Hours” with its magical realism and deus-ex-machina moments of utter (and intentional) absurdity. But Clay’s psychosexual and personal freefall does not land him at...

Although Amiri Baraka’s 1964 play Dutchman is steeped with profound commentary on the era’s racism in the U.S., Andre Gaines’ contemporary adaptation takes the plot and the message to haunting levels.

Co-written by Gaines and Qasim Basir, The Dutchman stars André Holland as Clay, a successful Black man grappling with his wife Kaya’s (Zazie Beetz) infidelity, as well as his own self-perception versus how the world sees him because of the color of his skin. After multiple people in his life tell him it’s only fair for him to step out on the marriage as well, he meets Lula (Kate Mara), a sinister, seductive white woman who knows an alarming amount about him.

“Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes,” the film’s opening reads, quoting Carl Jung.

Nearly two years after the killing of 30-year old Black man Jordan Neely on a New York City subway,...

In The Dutchman, Andre Gaines retrofits Amiri Baraka’s caustic play about a fatal encounter between a reserved Black man and a roguish white woman for the modern age. He intensifies the dramatic work’s surrealist undertones and takes the central couple’s story above ground. No longer confined to the claustrophobic interior of a train car, Clay (André Holland) and Lula (Kate Mara) gain greater contemporary resonance but also lose some of their edge.

When Dutchman opened at the Cherry Lane Theater in 1964, its acerbic take on the relationship between white and Black Americans shocked audiences. One critic called the Off-Broadway production, which later won an Obie award, “an explosion of hatred.” He wondered: “If this is the way even one Negro feels there is ample cause for guilt as well as alarm, and for the hastening of change.”

This slim play (it was only half an hour) debuted...

Exclusive: New York-based indie film company CinemaStreet Pictures is launching the New Voices in Horror slate of films, company CEO Dana Offenbach has confirmed.

The slate will champion queer, female identifying, immigrant, and Bipoc voices and will consist of four-six films annually. Dhruv Sud, CinemaStreet’s Head of Development, will oversee the slate and report to Offenbach.

Offenbach is repped by Ramo law, whose Stu Arbury and Tiffany Boyle are advising on the slate, project packaging and sales.

The first project in production is I Am Very Lonely, a genre-bending thriller from writer-director Anika Benkov (The Binding of Itzik) and starring Colin Bates (Queer) and Benkov. Dhruv Sud is producing, with Dana Offenbach executive-producing.

In the film, a non-binary Jewish game designer (Benkov), living a secret double life as an online ‘sub’ (submissive), goes down the rabbit hole when they discover their internet dom is a real-life fascist.

Exclusive: Megan Stalter (Hacks), Kanoa Goo (The Rookie), and Rainn Wilson (The Office) will topline Ily, Bye, a new short marking the narrative debut of veteran music video helmer Taylor James (Jason Mraz’s “I Feel Like Dancing”), which has wrapped production.

The short written and directed by James follows Siobhan (Stalter), a quirky, socially anxious mess who can’t seem to keep a job. Thanks to the help of her best friend Gary (Goo), she scores an interview with his boss, Mr. Litchfield (Wilson). But when her call to schedule the interview goes to voicemail, Siobhan panics and leaves a series of unhinged messages. Not wanting to lose the interview, she embarks on a chaotic mission to delete the voicemails herself. James jokes that he decided to start from scratch and pursue his dream of filmmaking “after being forced to retire” from his career as a professional backup dancer...

Exclusive: Aldis Hodge (Black Adam) and Lauren E. Banks (City on a Hill) are the latest additions to the cast of The Dutchman, the psychological thriller based on the Obie Award-winning play by Amiri Baraka, which began filming under a SAG-AFTRA Interim Agreement in September.

The actors join an ensemble that includes André Holland, Kate Mara, Zazie Beetz and Stephen McKinley Henderson, as we were first to tell you. Emmy nominee Andre Gaines (The One and Only Dick Gregory) is directing from his screenplay written with filmmaker Qasim Basir.

Set on a New York subway, The Dutchman centers on an encounter between a well-to-do Black man and an enchanting white woman who match wits in a sexualized game of cat and mouse that leads to a violent conclusion. The searing confrontation amplifies the dimensions of racial conflict in America in this adaptation of the stage show first presented at the...

Exclusive: André Holland (Passing), Kate Mara (Black Mirror), Zazie Beetz (The Harder They Fall) and Stephen McKinley Henderson (Beau Is Afraid) are set to star in The Dutchman, a psychological thriller based on the Obie Award-winning play by Amiri Baraka that has landed a SAG-AFTRA Interim Agreement.

Directing from his script written with filmmaker Qasim Basir is Andre Gaines, the Emmy-nominated multi-hyphenate behind Showtime’s 2021 documentary The One and Only Dick Gregory. Production kicks off in New York City September 25th, putting a group of 150 or so back to work.

Set on a New York subway, The Dutchman centers on an encounter between a well-to-do Black man and an enchanting white woman who match wits in a sexualized game of cat and mouse that leads to a violent conclusion. The searing confrontation amplifies the dimensions of racial conflict in America in this adaptation of the stage show first presented...

Exclusive: Former NFL player Andrew Hawkins and his Parks Tower Studios banner have entered into a co-production agreement with Rtg Features, the sister studio to basketball-focused media company Slam, to develop and produce a slate of cross-platform scripted and unscripted projects that spotlight sports and culture.

Hawkins comes to the deal after working with Rtg’s CEO Aron Phillips at Uninterrupted, the L.A.-based athlete empowerment brand co-founded by LeBron James and Maverick Carter.

As part of the deal, Rtg will come aboard to produce Hawk, a biopic first announced a few years ago that’s based on the true story of Hawkins’ journey to the NFL. Directing the pic is Qasim Basir, the filmmaker with whom Hawkins most recently collaborated as an EP on his critically acclaimed Sundance 2023 drama, To Live and Die and Live.

The film to be produced by Andre Gaines (The One and Only Dick Gregory...

MGM+ has given the green light to Hollywood Black, a documentary series from director Justin Simien that aims to serve as “a definitive chronicle of a century of the Black experience in Hollywood.”

The four-part series, based on the work of scholar Donald Bogle, is being produced by Simien’s Culture Machine, Forest Whitaker and Nina Yang Bongiovi’s Significant Productions, and the Academy Award-winning production company RadicalMedia.

“We are thrilled to work with Justin Simien, Jeffrey Schwarz, RadicalMedia, and to expand our prolific creative partnership with Forest and Nina,” Michael Wright, head of MGM+, said in a statement. “Hollywood Black, like other recent MGM+ docuseries, is an entertaining and thoughtful look at a vital part of American culture, examining the evolution of Black cinema and the talented artists who built it. It is a timely and relevant look at the Black experience in Hollywood.”

Simien’s credits include directing the 2014 film Dear White People,...

Exclusive: Skye P. Marshall has been tapped as a lead opposite Kathy Bates in CBS’ drama pilot Matlock, a new take on the classic legal TV drama starring Andy Griffith, which comes from Jane the Virgin creator Jennie Snyder Urman and NCIS: Los Angeles star Eric Christian Olsen.

In Matlock, written by Urman and to be directed by Kat Coiro, after achieving success in her younger years, the brilliant septuagenarian Madeline Matlock (Bates) rejoins the work force at a prestigious law firm where she uses her unassuming demeanor and wily tactics to win cases and expose corruption from within.

Marshall will play Olympia. A formidable attorney with a thirst for justice, Olympia is a key rainmaker at New York’s most prestigious law firm. Juggling work and life, she remains laser-focused and not the easiest to impress, which is apparent when she is tasked to oversee a third junior associate.

To Live and Die and Live, which premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, follows film director Muhammad (Amin Joseph) who tries to cope with his stepfather’s death while battling his own drug addiction.

In an exclusive interview at the premiere, director Qasim Basir told uInterview founder Erik Meers the most important message from the film.

“That it’s ok,” he stated. “And that a lot more people are dealing with things that this character is dealing with that we don’t know, either publicly or secretly. That you’re not alone.”

Basir also revealed the hardest scene to film.

“The conversation with his mom, no question,” the director answered immediately. “That day was very hot and emotional and we just kept going and doing take after take until we got it right.”

The post Video Exclusive: Director Qasim Basir On His Film ‘To Live & Die & Live...

Making a film requires maximum passion, patience, and determination. Without those things, there’s a myriad of potential challenges on the path from script to screen that could do a production in -- in particular, an independent production. But fortunately, director Qasim Basir has those key winning qualities and then some, qualities that ultimately landed him a cast that wholeheartedly believes in him and a final film that earned a place on the Sundance 2023 line-up.

Variety magazine celebrated the return of in-person Sundance to Park City, Utah at the MacRo Lodge. Julia Louis-Dreyfus joined writer and director Nicole Holofcener for the premiere of their film “You Hurt My Feelings” followed up a reception at the Variety Sundance cover party, presented by MacRo.

They were joined by co-star Tobias Menzies, “Harlem” cast members Meagon Good and Shoniqua Shandai, “To Live and Die and Live” director Qasim Basir and cast members Skye P. Marshall, Maryam Basir, Amin Joseph and Cory Hardrict, Variety CEO Michelle Sobrino-Stearns and co-editor-in-chief Ramin Setoodeh.

Too many Detroit-set films fall into the same three categories: movies about poverty, movies about crime, and movies about poverty that leads to crime. Ask any Detroiter about cinematic portrayals of the city, and you’ll inevitably hear complaints about “ruin porn” and how national media cameras always seem drawn to the most downtrodden blocks. Detroit might be a thriving multicultural economy with a booming downtown, a growing tech industry, and the first good Lions team in god-knows-how-long, but it often feels like Hollywood decided that, since the city fell down 15 years ago, it’s never been allowed to get back up.

Qasim Basir’s portrait of a successful filmmaker returning to Michigan to bury his stepfather while he battles old ghosts is a small, often tragic human story — and certainly shouldn’t be misconstrued as a simple “love letter” to the city. Yet Basir shoots Detroit with a...

A film as convoluted as its title, To Live and Die and Live is a poetic exploration of a new Detroit facing the same problems as the old one. Rust Belt cities throughout the country are undergoing a similar transformation: once built by a hard-working middle class that got their hands dirty and made things, they’ve been hollowed-out and rediscovered by a new generation of gentrifying hipsters who eventually build breweries on every corner.

Films exploring this transformation of Rust Belt cities have primarily been the domain of under-resourced filmmakers working on under-resourced film productions, the kind of work Muhammad Abdullah (Amin Jospeh) seemed to escape making by moving to the coasts. Returning to Detroit for his step-father’s funeral, Muhammad stops first at a night club for a cocaine-filled bender where he encounters Asia (Skye P Marshall), a party girl who lives like she may die young. A...

Like Qasim Basir’s last feature, “A Boy. A Girl. A Dream,” his new “To Live & Die and Live” is a questing mood piece whose characters roam a city’s highlife in a fruitless search for inner peace. Here the setting is Detroit, but the protagonist a successful filmmaker taking a forced yet needed sabbatical from the pressures of that prior film’s Los Angeles. The issues he’s dragged with him are hardly alleviated by this return to home turf, however.

As before, the writer-director’s elliptical narrative approach leaves a lot of unanswered questions. But the frustration they generate is again outweighed by the insight afforded into upwardly mobile (and in this case Muslim) African American communities, as well as the melancholy poetical drift of his cinematic style.

Burly, bearded Muhammad Abdullah (Amin Joseph) is a prodigal son whose return to Motor City should be a victory lap.

Director Qasim Basir returned to the Sundance Film Festival to present his new feature film, To Live and Die and Live. In it, he crafts a beautiful love letter to Detroit, Michigan by exploring the intoxication of nightlife and highlighting alluring landscapes. Amin Joseph stars as Muhammad, a Black film director who carries several heavy burdens and even worse coping mechanisms. As a testament to its strong script, Basir’s latest tackles various themes related to addiction, religion, and even manhood. And in its methodical approach towards addressing mental health, To Live and Die and Live defies and exceeds emotional expectations.

After traveling to a rebuilt Detroit, to a community he once called home and now feels alienated from, Muhammad returns to take on some family challenges as his highly beloved stepfather has just passed away. Viewers first see Muhammad fully thrusting himself into the fast life, where he partakes in binge-drinking and snorts cocaine.

Deadline’s studio at the 2023 edition of the Sundance Film Festival continued with Day 2 by hosting fest-goers such as Anne Hathaway, William Oldroyd, Ottessa Moshfegh, Thomasin McKenzie, Shea Whigham and Luke Geobel for Eileen; Qasim Basir, Skye P. Marshall, Cory Hardict and Amin Joseph of To Live and Die and Live; Michael J. Fox for Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie; Brooke Shields for Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields; Gael Garcia Bernal for Cassandro; Emilia Jones, Nicholas Braun and Susanna Fogel from Cat Person and many more.

Stay tuned for more photo galleries from the Deadline studio at Sundance 2023...

After 2 years of in-person viewing, the red carpet has made its return to the Sundance Film Festival 2023.

The film industry, actors, and lovers of all things cinemas braved the snowy Park City, Salt Lake City, to view the 130 films, docs, and short films that are now available to view on demand for online viewers.

Audiences came together in-person over the weekend in Park City, Salt Lake City, and Sundance Resort with talent that included Anne Hathaway, Mia Goth, Alia Shawkat, Skye P. Marshall, Jonathan Majors, Jason Momoa, Michael J. Fox, Daisy Ridley, Alexander Skarsgård, Gael Garcia Bernal, Randall Park, Brooke Shields, and more who walked press lines and red carpets for their world premieres.

Related: Deadline Studio at Sundance Film Festival 2023 – Day 3 – Jennifer Connelly, Ben Whishaw, Alia Shawkat, Cynthia Erivo & More

The 2023 program available online includes all dramatic competition films featuring the buzzed-about movies and docs that include Sometimes I think About Dying...

Exclusive: For his first interview on the edgy drama Magazine Dreams that makes its Sundance Premiere tonight at Eccles, Jonathan Majors was pulling into Park City after driving for days cross country from New York. While Majors is one of Hollywood’s fastest-rising stars after turns in The Last Black Man in San Francisco, Lovecraft Country, The Harder They Fall and Da 5 Bloods, he was not going to drive up a small film’s limited budget with pricey airfare. Magazine Dreams is written and directed by Elijah Bynum, and produced by Jennifer Fox, Dan Gilroy, Jeffrey Soros and Simon Horsman. Fox & Gilroy made Nightcrawler.

Related Story 20 Titles To Heat Up Chilly 2023 Sundance Festival Related Story Sundance Review: Qasim Basir's 'To Live And Die And Live' Related Story 'Willie Nelson & Family' Directors Talk Legendary Musician's Life, Legacy, Covid & Dropping A Very Different Sundance Vibe

Just like the unhinged photog played by Jake Gyllenhaal,...

Perhaps more than anything else, To Live and Die and Live is an unexpected ode to the city of Detroit. Not many films have been shot there, and certainly none has shown off the New Detroit as glamorously and impressively as Qasim Basir has done in his fourth feature that just debuted in the Next section at the Sundance Film Festival; the alluring architecture and vibes make you want to schedule a trip at once. Other than that, this is, to a significant degree, a hang-out film, featuring a film director central character at sixes and sevens about what to do next — you could generously call it Basir’s 8 ½.

Hanging out is certainly what Muhammad (Amin Joseph) does most of the time. Ostensibly he’s come back to town from L.A. due to the death of his stepfather, and he dutifully attends the funeral. But the smooth-talking young man...

Sundance alum Qasim Basir returns to Park City with “To Live and Die and Live,” an endlessly grim tale about a filmmaker’s homecoming to Detroit for his father’s funeral and some unfinished business. This is set against a palette of the prevailing sense of alienation he experiences within his extended family, creative circles, and the Muslim community.

Muhammad first emerges, sobbing, from a kaleidoscopic blur that turns out to be illuminated advertisements along an airport terminal’s moving walkway. In a split second his mood shifts. After a quick visit with his drug dealer, he makes his way to a club where purple-haired Asia catches his eye as she writhes on the dance floor. She swats his wandering hand away, yet she doesn’t outright shut him down. She does, however, draw a line when he gets exercised over her picking up his phone.

Apparently without any rest,...

Exclusive: Multi-hyphenate filmmaker, producer and financier Tommy Oliver has signed with CAA for representation of Confluential Films, his award-winning, Black-owned and -founded film, television, and docu production company and financier. CAA will also represent Oliver personally, as a writer-director, outside of Confluential.

Oliver is the Founder & CEO, and he and his wife, Codie Elaine Oliver, are co-chairs of the creator-driven company devoted to championing inclusive, authentic and culturally specific projects, which only finances works from creators of color.

News of the CAA signing comes just ahead of the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, where Oliver will be unveiling four projects. Features produced by Oliver and Confluential that are heading to the Utah festival include Erica Tremblay’s Fancy Dance, starring Lily Gladstone, Isabel Deroy-Olson and Shea Whigham; the Thembi Banks-directed drama Young. Wild. Free., starring Algee Smith, Sanaa Lathan and Mike Epps; and the documentary Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project.

The inaugural Television Screenwriting Lab for Black Muslim Writers — created to open a pathway for writers who have not been represented in television — wrapped this week. The lab was led by The Blackhouse Foundation, which works to expand opportunities for Black content creators, and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (Mpac) Hollywood Bureau, which strives to bring authentic, nuanced, and inclusive presentations of Muslims on screen.

Industry instructors Qasim Basir, Dma, Hanelle Culpepper and Fanshen Cox worked with the eight screenwriters to embrace their unique voices and experiences, hone their craft, refine their pitches and prepare them for careers in the industry. The sessions were held on Smashcut, a platform for online film education.

The project culminated this week with the screenwriters presenting their projects and personal stories to Participant television executives.

“Participant has been the industry standard when it comes to social impact entertainment and we are so grateful for...

Amazon Prime Video announced that the final season of “Bosch” will premiere on June 25.

All eight episodes will launch at once. Based on the best-selling Michael Connelly novels, the show has been the streamer’s longest running series so far.

The new season kicks off when a 10-year-old girl dies in an arson fire, prompting Detective Harry Bosch (Titus Welliver) to risk everything to bring her killer to justice despite opposition from powerful forces.

The cast also includes Jamie Hector, Amy Aquino, Madison Lintz and Lance Reddick. “Bosch” is executive produced by Welliver, Elle Johnson, Pieter Jan Brugge, Henrik Bastin, Michael Connelly and Eric Overmyer.

Also in today’s TV news roundup:

Partnerships

The Atx Television Festival announced the additions of HBO’s upcoming new series “The White Lotus” and “In Treatment,” as well as HBO Max’s new comedy “Hacks,” a Season 3 discussion of “Titans” and a theme panel...

Exclusive: Producer Andre Gaines announced today that Qasim Basir will be directing the biopic of famed NFL long shot Andrew Hawkins currently titled Hawk. Gaines will produce for Curated By Media, and Hawkins will also serve as an Ep of the film. Cameras roll this summer.

Hawk follows the true story of supreme underdog Hawkins, who gained entry into the NFL after faking his height, weight and social status to earn a multimillion-dollar contract with the Cleveland Browns. Hawkins took a unique path to success. After building a mediocre football resume in college and standing only 5’7, Hawkins set out on an improbable, obstacle-ridden three year odyssey that included adding clay to heals to increase his height, adding weights to his pockets to increase his weight, and pretending to be his own agent on phone calls and emails to get admitted to tryouts – all eventually leading him to stardom in the NFL.

For a certain percentage of the country, the best thing that could have happened to them on Election Day 2016 was if they had met someone. At least that’s the idea offered in “A Boy. A Girl. A Dream.,” co-writer (with Samantha Tanner) and director Qasim Basir’s underwritten and often irritating romance that’s like a combative “Before Sunrise.” Forget Republicans versus Democrats; the real conflict is between new loves.

The evening in question begins near a food truck. Cass (Omari Hardwick) is hanging with his friends when he spots Frida (Meagan Good) eating alone and strolls over to chat her up. He invites her to a club, an invitation she initially turns down but then accepts. In the meantime, Cass takes a call from his son, saying that his mom is “screaming at the TV.” He says to the boy, “It doesn’t matter what happens tonight. What did I tell you?...

"Do you understand how important this is, and how important art is?" Samuel Goldwyn Films has debuted an official trailer for an indie romantic drama titled A Boy. A Girl. A Dream., from writer/director Qasim Basir. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, and it plays out as one-long-take following two people who meet in Los Angeles and go on a "thrilling and emotional journey" together, a bit like Richard Linklater's Before films. On the night of the 2016 Presidential election, Cass played by Omari Hardwick, an L.A. club promoter, randomly meets Frida played by Meagan Good, a Midwestern visitor. She challenges him to revisit his broken dreams - while he pushes her to discover hers. This looks so good, I'm a bit sad I missed it at Sundance, but happy I have a chance to catch up with it soon. Take a look below.

This month’s BAMcinemaFest isn’t just for New York cinephiles. The annual Brooklyn festival routinely boasts a slate that includes some of the year’s best indie offerings from festivals earlier in the year, and while the latest edition is no exception, it has also has a number of notable world premieres and under-the-radar offerings.

Consider it a welcome respite from the boom and bustle of a summer season crowded with the biggest blockbuster films. The festival opens with “Sorry to Bother You,” Boots Riley’s Sundance-acclaimed racial satire, and closes with Josephine Decker’s surreal New York character study “Madeline’s Madeline.” In between, there are a number of distinctive cinematic experiences.

Read More: BAMcinemaFest Announces 2018 Lineup, Including ‘Madeline’s Madeline’ and ‘Sorry to Bother You’

Check out IndieWire’s must-see picks below. This year’s BAMcinemaFest kicks off June 20 and runs until July 1.

“A Boy. A Girl.

For the best in new American independent cinema, Brooklyn’s BAMcinémaFest continually curates the finest selection from previous festivals, as well as new premieres.. They’ve now unveiled this year’s slate for the festival running from June 20-July 1, including some of my favorite films of the year thus far as well as highly-anticipated festival favorites and the world premieres of Michael Koresky, Jeff Reichert & Farihah Zaman’s Feast of the Epiphany, Lev Kalman & Whitney Horn’s Two Plains & a Fancy, and Aaron Schimberg’s Chained for Life.

“We are proud to present work that is compelling, defiant, and ultimately thrilling,”says Gina Duncan, Bam’s Associate Vice President of Cinema. “It feels appropriate to celebrate the tenth BAMcinemaFest with a line-up of films and filmmakers whose energy and adventurousness hints at something profound taking root. I can’t wait to see what it bears.” See the lineup below and for more information,...

Bam has announced the lineup for the 10th annual BAMcinemaFest, which takes place June 20–July 1. The festival will open with Boots Riley’s “Sorry to Bother You” and end with Josephine Decker’s “Madeline’s Madeline,” with Debra Granik’s “Leave No Trace,” Bo Burnham’s “Eighth Grade,” and many more playing in between.

In a message shared exclusively with IndieWire, Riley said he is “beyond honored and excited to have ‘Sorry to Bother You’ open BAMcinemaFest — especially on their 10th year anniversary. This festival is definitely one that celebrates new notions in film. Knowing the artistry and prestige that has occupied this spot previously, I am trying not to let it go to my head. You may see me act a little fancier after this. I will be holding all of my drinks with one pinky up — even bottles of water.”

Other standouts include Robert Greene’s “Bisbee ’17,” Gus Van Sant...

“Shampoo” meets “Medicine for Melancholy” (or “Before Sunrise”) in Qasim Basir’s two-hander “A Boy. A Girl. A Dream” — though with its protagonists largely lost in their own thoughts, this tale of strangers meeting on the night of the 2016 U.S. presidential election substitutes a poetical moodiness for those earlier films’ bantering garrulousness. One of the smoothest enterprises yet among that select group of features shot in a single take, the film succeeds as more than an accomplished technical stunt, even if neither its political nor character dimensions feel quite fully realized. Samuel Goldwyn plans a release for later this year, and timing it close to the midterm elections might be a wise strategy.

Club promoter Cass (Omari Hardwick) and his friend Roc (Jay Ellis) are partying in downtown L.A. with a half-dozen attractive lady friends when Cass’ eye is caught by passer-by Frida aka Free (Meagan Good) as...

Exclusive: Qasim Basir, the writer-director whose Sundance Film Festival drama A Boy. A Girl. A Dream. starring Omari Hardwick and Meagan Good was just acquired by Samuel Goldwyn Films, has signed a rep deal with ICM Partners.

The pic, directed by Basir who co-penned with Samantha Tanner, is set in Los Angeles on Election Night 2016 and centers on a club promoter (Hardwick) who falls for a woman (Good) who challenges him to revisit his broken dreams while he pushes her to discover hers.

Basir’s previous feature film was Destined, the 2016 drama that starred Cory Hardrict as two characters — a rising star in the architectural community and a neighborhood drug dealer — in a story of how even the smallest incident can manifest into a life-changing event.

Basir remains repped by Zero Gravity and attorney Marios Rush.

Samuel Goldwyn Films has acquired worldwide rights to Omari Hardwick-Meagan Good’s romance drama “A Boy. A Girl. A Dream.”

The distributor announced the deal Thursday and did not give a release date. The producer is Datari Turner through his Datari Turner Productions with Qasim Basir (“Destined”) directing from his own script.

Hardwick is playing a Los Angeles club promoter on the night of the 2016 presidential election. He meets a woman named Free (played by Good) who challenges him to revisit his broken dreams during a series of unfortunate events that happen as Donald Trump surges ahead over Hillary Clinton in the race for electoral votes to win the White House.

The film, which debuted in January at the Sundance Film Festival, also stars Jay Ellis (“Insecure”), Dijon Talton, Wesley Jonathan, and Affion Crockett. Hardwick and Good are executive producers on the film along with Jash’d Belcher, Louis Steyn,...

Samuel Goldwyn Films has acquired worldwide rights to A Boy. A Girl. A Dream, the Qasim Basir-directed movie starring Power‘s Omari Hardwick and Meagan Good that premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. No release date has been set.

The Los Angeles-set drama penned by Basir and Samantha Tanner revolves around a Los Angeles club promoter (Hardwick) who on the night of the 2016 Presidential election meets a woman (Good) who challenges him to revisit his broken dreams. It’s all set against the backdrop of Donald Trump overtaking Hilary Clinton in the course of the evening.

Jay Ellis, Dijon Talton, Wesley Jonathan and Affion Crockett co-star in the pic, produced by Datari Turner. Jash’d Belcher, Louis Steyn, Tj Steyn, Jamal Chilton, Tim Weatherspoon, Phil Thornton, Good and Hardwick are executive producers.

The deal was negotiated by Samuel Goldwyn’s Meg Longo and CAA, Turner, and attorney...

Us election night drama premiered in Sundance.

Samuel Goldwyn Films has acquired worldwide rights to Qasim Basir’s Sundance entry A Boy. A Girl. A Dream.

Basir and Samantha Tanner wrote the film starring Omari Hardwick as a Los Angeles club promoter on the night of the 2016 Us presidential election who meets a woman (Meagan Good) who challenges him to revisit his broken dreams.

Jay Ellis, Dijon Talton, Wesley Jonathan, and Affion Crockett round out the key cast. Datari Turner produced via his Datari Turner Productions. Executive producers on the film are Jash’d Belcher, Louis Steyn, Tj Steyn, Jamal Chilton,...

When Qasim Basir made his 2010 debut feature, “Mooz-lum,” the story of an American Muslim going to college in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Facebook changed the trajectory of his filmmaking career.

“It was a very difficult movie to get out,” said Basir. “It wasn’t about terrorism, [but] it still received a great amount of opposition and hate.” He turned to Facebook, writing individually to his followers and asking for help in building awareness. Sharing behind-the-scenes footage and telling his personal story, Basir quickly built a community around his “Mooz-lum” Facebook page.

“We went straight to the people and built a community of 100,000 from around the world, who were literally writing, ‘We want to see this movie in our city,'” said Basir. Running contests on the now-defunct Demandit, where followers’ interest dictated where the film screened, Basir worked with AMC Independent to create his own theatrical release in dozens of cities around the world.

All about moods, inchoate dreams, chance connections, the ying–yang of attraction, moving through nocturnal Los Angeles with the events of Election Night 2016 hovering in the background, A Boy. A Girl. A Dream. sticks close to an attractive young couple who, just having met, spend the evening sparking, brooding, arguing, testing the sexual waters, trying to connect and obliquely reacting to what’s happening in the country.

This ambitious third film by Qasim Basir, purportedly shot all in one take (though almost certainly not), is intermittently intoxicating as it sends its searchers figuratively floating through the night on a vague and...

Starting this week, the 2018 Sundance Film Festival gives us a first glimpse at the year in cinema, but even if you won’t be at Park City, we’re rounding up an initial glimpse at the premieres. After highlighting our most-anticipated films, bookmark this page for a continually-updated round-up of trailers and clips, kicking off with the Jon Hamm-led Beirut, World Cinema offerings Pity and Loveling, the documentaries Seeing Allred and Genesis 2.0 (pictured above), and more.

Check out the trailers (and clips) below thus far in alphabetical order and we’ll be posting reviews from Park City soon, so follow along here.

Beirut (Brad Anderson)

A U.S. diplomat flees Lebanon in 1972 after a tragic incident at his home. Ten years later, he is called back to war-torn Beirut by CIA operatives to negotiate for the life of a friend he left behind.

A Boy, A Girl, A Dream.

Qasim Basir’s third feature film is A Boy. A Girl. A Dream., a drama that is set to have its world premiere this month at the Sundance Film Festival’s Next section. The pic stars Power‘s Omari Hardwick and Meagan Good is the story of two people who meet in Los Angeles on the night Donald Trump is elected President of the United States. Hardwick is Cass, a USC grad stalled in his career, and Good is Frida, a visitor in town who is in the middle of a tough breakup. Their…...

A young boy residing in the Brewster projects of Detroit follows his friend to a stash house unaware that the consequences of this moment will shape the rest of his life. He’s coerced into dealing as a means for survival—the only way to convince his friend’s bosses that he isn’t a snitch being to actually engage in the activities he would be snitching on. So he ignores another friend just trying to say hello, his fear towards talking to her while “working” too much to utter a single word. A car pulls up, he walks over, and chaos commences. Off he runs with two grown men in pursuit. Either he avoids a speeding car by falling (and getting caught) or he diverts trajectory and keeps going.

Instead of choosing one outcome to follow, writer/director Qasim Basir brings both to life. One fork leads this boy...

Qasim Basir's indie drama Destined proves both uncommonly ambitious and frustratingly derivative. Presenting the life of its central character as it plays out in alternative universes, the pic traffics in territory made familiar in numerous films and plays such as Sliding Doors. But it also rises above the usual level of melodrama in its thematic concerns that make it of more than passing interest.

The Detroit-set urban drama begins with a teenager, who works for a drug dealer, experiencing a life-changing incident that results in his spinning off into parallel destinies. In one, he's Sheed, a criminal who rises to...

XLrator Media has acquired North American rights to Destined, the Cory Hardrict-starring drama written and directed by Qasim Basir that bowed at last year’s Los Angeles Film Festival. It will bow in theaters in the fall via XLrator’s Pace label. Hardrict (All Eyez On Me, American Sniper) plays both lead roles in the pic that tells parallel stories of Rasheed a rising star in the architectural community, and Sheed, a neighborhood drug dealer, and how even the smallest…...

Power‘s Omari Hardwick and Meagan Good, who stars in Hulu's upcoming Foxy Brown, will star in the indie romance drama A Boy. A Girl. A Dream: Love On Election Night. The film, which is about a budding romance during Trump’s election night, co-stars Jay Ellis (Insecure), Dijon Talton, Wesley Jonathan, and Affion Crockett. Produced by Datari Turner and written and directed by Qasim Basir (Destined), the story follows a Los Angeles club promoter named Cass (Hardwick), who on…...

The presidential election is an evening of romance for Omari Hardwick and Meagan Good, who have signed on to star in A Boy. A Girl. A Dream: Love on Election Night.

Qasim Basir is directing the romance drama from his script. It sees Hardwick as a Los Angeles club promoter named Cass, who, on the night of the 2016 presidential election, meets a woman named Free (Good). She challenges him to revisit his broken dreams during a series of events that occur as Donald Trump surges ahead over Hillary Clinton in the race for electoral votes to win the White House.

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The presidential election proves an evening of romance for Omari Hardwick and Meagan Good, who have signed on to star in A Boy. A Girl. A Dream: Love on Election Night.

Qasim Basir is directing from his own script, which sees Hardwick as a Los Angeles club promoter named Cass, who, on the night of the 2016 presidential election, meets a woman named Free (Good). She challenges him to revisit his broken dreams during a series of events that occur as Donald Trump surges ahead of Hillary Clinton in the race for electoral votes to win the White House.

Jay ...