USA,
2004, 90 min
Shown in 2004
CREDITS
- dir
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Rodney Evans
- prod
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Rodney Evans, Jim McKay, Aimee Schoof
- scr
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Rodney Evans
- cam
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Harlan Bosmajian
- editor
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Sabine Hoffman
- mus
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Marc Anthony Thompson
- cast
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Anthony Mackie, Roger Robinson, Larry Gillard Jr., Duane Boutte, Aunjanue Ellis
- source
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Miasma Films, 469 State St. #2R, Brooklyn, NY 11217. FAX: 718-246-8235. EMAIL: rodneyevans@earthlink.net.
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COMMENTS
Skyy Prize contender. Rodney Evans, Anthony Mackie, Duane Boutte in person.
OTHER
Rich in heart and intelligence, Rodney Evans’s first fiction feature pays homage to art, intellectual ancestry and the strength to persevere in the face of social injustice. Both an artistic and political achievement, Brother to Brother offers a rare glimpse of what it means to be a Black, gay artist today as well as during the Harlem Renaissance, and marks Evans as a brave and unique voice in American cinema. Perry Williams is a talented young artist working and studying in New York. Art world success is knocking at his door, but Perry is afraid of selling out to a white privileged world. At the same time, community and family support is elusive as he endures homophobic barbs from his Black classmates, rejection by his father and a disappointingly fetishistic relationship with his handsome white lover. Then Perry meets Bruce Nugent, a living relic, who was a poet and painter of the Harlem Renaissance, along with Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston and Wallace Thurman. Surreal narrative turns land him in the middle of scandalous parties and dinners in 1930s Harlem, and Perry learns that his struggle is not new and what is most important is a strong self-image and a commitment to preserve truth and nurture his artistic spirit.
—Shari Frilot, Sundance Film Festival
FACTOID #1
The Festival has screened many debuts, both short- and feature-length, by some of cinema’s most influential artists including Juan Antonio Bardem, Jane Campion, Roman Polanski, Melvin Van Peebles and Lina Wertmüller.
