DEE REES' PARIAH and SUNDANCE: ALL ABOUT 'FREEDOM'

Ashley Elaine York @ Sundance 2011

Today at 6 p.m., Sundance Institute President and Founder Robert Redford opened the 2011 Festival with these words: We’re always asking, ‘What are we doing, why are we here, what’s the point of all of this?’” he said. “The point simply has been to do whatever we can to create opportunities for new artists.”

Beginning with Sundance 2010, Festival directors and programmers returned to their core mission statement:  to turn away from the pomp and circumstance of more recent Festivals, and return to a focus on great films, important, up-and-coming filmmakers, and cutting-edge content.

Besides the Kenneth Cole-designed royal blue ski vests that "Festival Insiders" (no longer called Festival volunteers) don, Sundance 2011 offers a lower key, rougher around the edges feel; and, with fewer stars about town, puts the emphasis back on independent filmmakers and their wide range of films which Redford feels is critical to audiences today.

“Some films are not going to be liked at all, and some films will be very much liked. That’s okay,” said Redford. “The point is to show what’s out there. And create opportunities for the filmmakers, and for audiences to find that work.  Wherever it goes is really some other people’s business.”

In line with Redford's efforts to use Sundance to help turn worthy filmic ideas into extraordinary finished films, a record six of the sixteen films in the U.S. Dramatic Competition this year were developed through the Sundance Institute Labs.  PARIAH, the opening-night film at Eccles Theatre was among them.

Nekisa Cooper

PARIAH's producer, Nekisa Cooper, spoke about the effect the Sundance Institute had on bringing their film to market.  "It takes a village, " she said, "and Sundance really supported our work.  But so did Sundial Pictures and IFP, which also has a great lab, and the Tribeca Film Institute.  It really takes a village to get an independent film produced."

Dee Rees

The film's director, Dee Rees, admitted the content of PARIAH had a lot to do with the difficulty Cooper and she faced in convincing backers that the feature film version of their successful 2007 short would draw audiences, acclaim, and the all-important bottom line:  profit.

"Never use these three words in a pitch if you want to get funding:  Black, gay, or coming-of-age.  Never.  Not if you want to get your movie funded," she said.

Despite their initial difficulty, the production team's tenacious efforts have paid off.  Rees said they now have 95% backing for the film, from more than a half-dozen sponsors.

Adepero Oduye, "Alike," in PARIAH

But, like the the 2009 Sundance Grand July Prize-Winning PRECIOUS: BASED ON THE NOVEL "PUSH" BY SAPPHIRE, a film by Lee Daniels, PARIAH is about a Black teenager, Alike, played by Adepero Oduye, coming to terms with herself in the midst of her dysfunctional family and a socio-cultural reality which neither reflects how she sees the world, nor herself within it.

PRECIOUS, like PARIAH, struggled to get financial backing until Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry joined the filmmaker as co-producers and helped to promote the film after its successful showing at Sundance 2009.

Dee Rees credits executive producer Spike Lee for doing for PARIAH what Lee Daniels said Oprah and Perry did for his award-winning film.

"[Spike] has been great to me all along--all the way through film school [at NYU's Tisch School] until now.  He read draft after draft when I was originally writing it--and he was honest.  He'd say--'awful, too obvious, too on-the-nose.'  Then, after it was shot, he looked at cut after cut with us.  And, now that we're going into the distribution phase, he is helping us navigator those waters, as well--to help us figure out how to go about finding a distributor, and what to look out for."

But, if you ask Rees, Spike Lee and her producer Nekisa Cooper, meant far more to her than just the producing experience they brought to PARIAH.  In fact, they helped her to have the courage to tell her semi-autobiographical tale.

Kim Wayans, "Audrey," in PARIAH

Like the mother of the title character, Audrey, played by Kim Wayans, Rees' mother turned her back on the filmmaker after she came out, and that's where Spike Lee and Cooper, as well as others among the cast, stepped in.   They acted as caring, accepting friends, who gave Rees the strength to relate honestly the pain of coming out to parents who disapprove of who you are, while you are still uncertain exactly who that is or how you fit within society.

Also like the title character, Rees said she had difficulty defining her sexuality, because she "wasn't butch, but also wasn't femme."  Rather, she was "just" herself.  And that didn't fit into any specified social role, either within mainstream society, or the lesbian community of friends of which she was a part.  Ultimately, Rees said the theme of the movie PARIAH came from this realization.

In the latter part of the shoot, the production experienced unceasing inclement weather.  As frustrating as it was, it gave Rees some time to think about a suggestion a crew member had made about adding some emotional or dramatic weight to the ending of the film.  Rees had already written the final scene in which Alike leaves both her disapproving mother and her loving best friend, her Fort Greene neighborhood in Brooklyn, for California and early entrance into UC Berkeley.  

Charles Parnall, "Arthur"

The visuals of Alike leaving her father, Arthur, played by Charles Parnall, her sister, and friend and boarding a bus to California may not have been enough to drive home the theme of the movie.  So, during this long rain delay, Rees had extra time to sit down and write a poem, which Alike ultimately recites in voice-over to draw the film to a riveting and affecting close.

With perfect pacing and fine iteration, Alike speaks to the freedom that comes in the "cracks" of her life, in those spaces, places, and times that she is unquestionably angry and lonely, but also undeniably free.  Free to be different, to be herself--to be unlike anyone else, either in the ranks of mainstream society or within her self-identified social group.

Aasha Davis, "Bina,"

For Rees, the title of the film is based on how others see Alike, or any other person classified as "going against the grain" in society...as 'pariahs.'  Ironically, though, it is in this liminal social space that teens like Alike are given the greatest gift of all:  the opportunity to be free.  Because, as Alike tells her father just before her bus bound from California pulls away, "God doesn't make mistakes."

DAY ONE, SUNDANCE, Thursday, Janurary 20, 2011

Ashley Elaine York @ Sundance 2011

January 20, 2011

After much anticipation, the 2011 Sundance Film Festival commences today from Park City, Utah.

DAY ONE at Sundance is a celebration of Festival films in competition and the New Frontier program, including: 

Dee Rees' PARIAH, executive produced by Spike Lee
< http://sundance.bside.com/2011/films/pariah_sundance2011 >.

PARIAH is a coming-of-age drama about 17-year-old Alike (played by Adepero Oduye from Law and Order and Wifey) who struggles to negotiate her multiple and competing social identities.

By day, Alike is a proud, black, feminist butch living for the city and the cause, along with her "outted" friends in their middle class Brooklyn milieu.  But, at night, to meet the expectations of her parents and her religious community, this torn teenager reverts to her role as the good feminine Christian girl.  Along with Alike's search for sexual identity, PARIAH asks the timeless and thought-provoking question: "Who do you become when you can't be yourself?"

Among those films in competition for the 2011 Sundance US Dramatic feature film prize, PARIAH is based on the audacious short of the same name that premiered at Sundance 2008, before taking the top prize at seven other film festivals, including the Palm Springs Intl Short Festival and the Los Angles Film Festival (Audience Award).  

Lisa Kennedy of the Denver Post calls the short form PARIAH, "reminiscent of the smart urban cinema of Jim McKay ('Everyday People'), Nelson George ('Life Support') and 'Half Nelson' [by] director Ryan Fleck."  The work of a "promising young Black filmmaker," professor of Feminist Studies, Jacqueline Bobo, adds, "PARIAH is an engaging, thoughtful, must-see film about a young Black lesbian confronting the complexities of family, high school and her awareness of her sexual milieu."

PARIAH is a film to follow, based on past reviews and awards for its short form version, as well as its A-list backer in Spike Lee.  Dee Rees' feature film debut (which she scripted while interning on Lee's INSIDE MAN) may set the standard for films to come during Sundance 2011.


COMING UP NEXT:
CHECK BACK after the screening concludes at midnight PST for a complete review of the film and the breakout performances of its cast, including lead actress Adepero Oduye (from Nigeria by way of Brooklyn) who also starred in Bill T. Jones' FELA! and the TV movie Wifey (directed by past-BET Chief Reginald Hudlin), as welll as her guest-staring turns in episodes of Law and Order ("Birthright," NBC, 2005), Law and Order: Criminal Intent ("The War at Home," NBC, 2006), The Unusuals ("The Circle Line," ABC, 2009), and Louie ("Dentist/Tarese," FX, 2010).

Also, tomorrow afternoon, look for commentary on Sundance founder Robert Redford's opening address, a post-screening conversation with Director/Producer Dee Rees, Producer Nekisa Cooper, and cast members Kim Wayans, Aasha Davis, Charles Parnell, Pernell Walker, and star Adepero Oduye, plus an overview of Day Two at Sundance 2011.