Clement Virgo’s much-anticipated film adaptation of author Lawrence Hill’s award-winning bestseller, "The Book of Negroes," is slated to make its North American premiere at the second annual Canadian International Television Festival (CITF) in Toronto next month.
This comes after a MIPCOM premiere in Cannes earlier this month, as the opening night gala. The filmmaker and a few of the film’s stars, who were present at MIPCOM (the international TV and entertainment market held in Cannes once every year; where content is introduced for co-producing, buying, selling, financing and distributing), are also expected to attend the film’s North American debut at CITF on November 18.
David Heath, board member of the CITF, said: "We are thrilled to present this advanced look at ‘The Book of Negroes’ at one of the television world’s newest events. Made for two of North America’s most compelling TV networks, Canada’s CBC and Viacom’s BET Networks in the U.S., the series is a sweeping historical drama. It has an international scope and an international cast that features some of the finest Canadian talent in front of and behind the camera."
Damon D’Oliveira, executive producer of the project, for Conquering Lion Pictures, added: "In addition to bringing this North American premiere to television fans, the CITF will feature an industry-oriented panel discussion about the making of ‘The Book of Negroes.’"
If anyone reading this will be in attendance for the screening at CITF, please let me know. Email me at [email protected]. I’d love to get an early write-up for S&A readers.
Aunjanue Ellis, Louis Gossett Jr., Cuba Gooding Jr., and Lyriq Bent are all members of the starring cast of the project from Conquering Lion Pictures, Out of Africa Entertainment and Entertainment One (eOne) Television.
Aunjanue Ellis stars as Aminata Diallo, while Cuba Gooding Jr. and Lou Gossett Jr. play Sam Fraunces and Daddy Moses respectively.
Gooding’s Fraunces is a freed slave from Jamaica who runs his namesake tavern (Fraunces Tavern), participates in several historical events, and later moves to Mount Vernon to run George Washington’s household.
Meanwhile, Daddy Moses is Moses ‘Daddy’ Wilkinson or Old Moses, an African American slave, and Methodist preacher in Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone. Though blind and crippled, Wilkinson led a band of runaway slaves to freedom in 1776.
Also Lyriq Bent is playing Chekura, who, as a young boy, made the crossing with Aminata when she was sold into slavery, is separated from her, and later reunites with her when they are adults, and have a child together.
Allan Hawco is Solomon Lindo (a Jewish man Aminata is sold to), Ben Chaplin is Capt. John Clarkson (a young British naval officer recruiting black settlers to move from Nova Scotia to Sierra Leone); and Jane Alexander plays a Maria Witherspoon, the matriarch of a white family that Aminata leaves her baby with, for safety, during a series of riots that break out as the city she lives in is attacked and black men and women are lynched. She later returns to the Witherspoon’s home to claim her child, only to learn that they’ve left with the baby.
The adaptation of the novel will be a 6-hour TV mini-series, which, as I’ve said previously, is more suitable for the material than a feature-length film. It’s not a very long book at around 380 pages (paperback), but the material is weighty, and, I think would be better told in long-form, instead of cramming it all into 2 hours.
USA rights belong to BET, who are teaming up with CBC in Canada, to bring the mini-series adaptation to the small screen, during the 2014/2015 TV season.
Here’s its trailer:
