American Film Institute alum Logan Sandler’s feature directorial debut, “Live Cargo,” which premiered at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival to glowing reviews, and has screened around the world, is based on writer-director’s own experience growing up in and around the Bahamas. Described as a powerful meditation on love, loss and healing in a post-colonial world, “Live Cargo” was shot entirely in black and white, and upends the “tropical paradise” archetype through its sharp, neorealist focus on the day-to-day of the island community.

Co-written and produced by fellow American Film Institute alum Thymaya Payne (director and producer of the award-winning documentary “Stolen Seas”), “Live Cargo” follows young couple Nadine (Dree Hemingway) and Lewis (Lakeith Stanfield), who retreat to a small Bahamian island after a devastating loss, where Nadine’s family has kept a house for many years. As they try to heal and move forward with their relationship, the community on the island shows signs of unraveling – with the island’s mayor, Roy (Robert Wisdom), squaring off against Doughboy (Leonard Earl Howze), a human trafficker who manipulates the impressionable homeless teenager Myron (newcomer Sam Dillon) into assisting with his smuggling operation.

FilmBuff picked up the film and will open “Live Cargo” in select theaters + on VOD starting March 31st.

A striking first trailer for the film premiered this week and is embedded below: