Sweetness in the Belly, the Dakota Fanning-starring film about a white British girl who becomes an Ethiopian refugee, will be distributed in the U.S. by Gravitas Ventures. According to Deadline, the film will be released on digital outlets May 8 with regard to the coronavirus pandemic.
The film is adapted from Camilla Gibb’s novel about a girl named Lilly (Fanning) who is abandoned in Moroccan village “where the spiritual teachings of a Sufi master provide her with the discipline to find acceptance in the Ethiopian city where she later settles.” Due to political unrest in Ethiopia, she is then forced to become a refugee in London, “where her status as a white Muslim woman makes her far more of a pariah than it ever did in Ethiopia, while at the same time granting her benefits withheld from Black refugees.” The film also stars Wunmi Mosaku and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and is directed by Ethiopian director Zeresenay Berhane Mehari.
The film is also not based on a true story, and the fact that it’s centering a white woman in what would otherwise be a Black refugee story caused a controversy on social media. Fanning herself used her Instagram to make a statement about her role in the film, clarifying that her character was abandoned by her parents in Africa. Mehari also addressed the controversy to IndieWire.
“I’m Ethiopian and Ethiopia was at the heart of the story,” said Mehari. “The script was brought to be my one of the producers while I was showing Difret [Mehari’s debut film] in Berlin in 2014. It hit close to home on many levels. It is about unpacking what home means across all its dimensions and showing how communities heal after they have been ripped apart.”
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Photo: Gravitas Ventures
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