still from Residue
2020 / 90 mins. / color
Dir. and Scr. Merawi Gerima / Cine. Mark Jeevaratnam
Cast: Dennis Lindsey, Obinna Nwachukwu, Taline Stewart
DCP courtesy Array Releasing
Introduced by Richard Peña, Columbia University School of the Arts
The first-time feature of writer/director Merawi Gerima, Residue follows aspiring filmmaker Jay (Obinna Nwachukwu) who returns to his childhood home in a rapidly gentrifying DC neighborhood. But as a voiceover asks early in the film, is Jay’s camera a weapon for protecting his community, or is it an archaeological tool for digging up bones? The son of the LA Rebellion filmmaker Haile Gerima (Bush Mama, 1976; Sankofa, 1993), Residue’s director displays a sensibility in keeping with the filmmaking movement of which his father was a catalyst. His ability to find the lyrical in the everyday recalls Charles Burnett’s Killer of Sheep (1978), while his reflexivity echoes the more modernist leanings of his father’s cinema. Distributed by Ava DuVernay’s independent distribution company, Array, Residue effectively bridges different generations of black filmmaking even as it turns generational change into one of its major themes.
– Rob King
About Richard Peña Selects
On the eve of his retirement, Professor Richard Peña has selected six films of particular importance to him and his career, ranging from classic Hollywood noir (Kiss Me Deadly) to one of the last Chinese films made before the Cultural Revolution (Two Stage Sisters) to screen in this three day festival.