After debuting at last year’s AFI Fest, Angel Kristi Williams’ Really Love, starring Kofi Siriboe and Yootha Wong-Loi-Sing, will hit Netflix in August.

The film was initially supposed to debut at SXSW 2020 before the pandemic hit. Jury members were able to still screen the films and choose their winners. In the Narrative Feature Competition the film received a Special Jury Recognition for Acting for the performances of Siriboe and Wong-Loi-Sing.

The romance film, chronicling a rising black painter (Siriboe) in a gentrifying Washington, D.C., also stars Naturi Naughton, Uzo Aduba, Michael Ealy, Jade Eshete, Mack Wilds and the late Suzzanne Douglas.

The description:

Set in Washington DC, Isaiah, a Black painter, is on the brink of giving up when he meets Stevie, an intriguing beauty with big brains.

Isaiah’s creativity flows with Stevie in his life. They fall in love, but his work remains overlooked, bruising his ego. When Isaiah convinces a gallerist to take a chance on him, he pours himself into his art, which catapults his career, but doesn’t leave room for love. Frustrated, Stevie accepts a dream job in Chicago, breaking Isaiah’s heart.

A year passes without communication until Isaiah sees Stevie at his group show in Chicago. Though Isaiah’s life seems to have improved, it isn’t what he imagined without her.

In an interview with Shadow And Act, Felicia Pride, who co-wrote Really Love, spoke about pressing forward after the SXSW cancellation. “What Angel and I always say is that Really Love is the little film that could. It is going to come to the world as it wants and despite everything. Our lead creative team of Black women will continue to push for Really Love until it reaches the light of day and beyond, because that is what Black women do. So I rest assured on that,” she said.

Really Love drops on Netflix on August 25.

Suzzanne Douglas

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