The opening night film at this year's Run & Shoot Filmworks Martha's Vineyard African-American Film Festival next month, which runs from August 7 to August 11, Tanya Wright's Butterfly Rising (which she describes as "Thelma + Louise + Magic") is a drama that centers on singer Lilah Belle, who sets out to escape her grief after her brother dies, and embarks on a road trip, but not before coaxing the new-to-town, most scandalous woman in Artesia – Rose Johnson – to go with her. These two broken souls steal a vintage truck and head out on the open road to a fated encounter with the mythical, magical ‘Lazarus of the Butterflies.’ What occurs with the strange man transforms their destinies and binds the women together—forever.

You may recall a wonderful interview that Emmanuel did with Tanya in February (an interview I strongly recommend you read HERE), in which she talks about the film, its origins, and life in the entertainment business, as a renaissance woman of sorts – writer, director, producer, and actor (she stars in Butterfly Rising by the way, alongside McGhee Monteith, Adam Clark, Terrah Bennett Smith and La' Reya Brown).

I've yet to see the film, but I plan on making a trip to the festival this year, so it's a film I hope to see for the day or two that I'm there.

In the meantime, here's a trailer: