Greta Lee and Teo Yoo in ‘Past Lives’ (Photo Credit: Jon Pack / Courtesy of A24)
Past Lives took home top film honors at the 2024 Film Independent Spirit Awards, held on February 25th in a tent on the beach in Santa Monica. The film also earned Celine Song the Best Director award, with American Fiction‘s Cord Jefferson and May December‘s Samy Burch earning screenplay honors.
On the television side, The Last of Us collected two awards: Nick Offerman for Best Supporting Performance in a New Scripted Series and Keivonn Montreal Woodard for Best Breakthrough Performance in a New Scripted Series. Beef also netted two wins, with Ali Wong awarded Best Lead Performance in a New Scripted Series and the show earning the Best New Scripted Series award.
2024 Film Independent Spirit Award Nominations
Best Feature (Award given to the producer.)
All of Us Strangers
Producers: Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin,...
Past Lives took home top film honors at the 2024 Film Independent Spirit Awards, held on February 25th in a tent on the beach in Santa Monica. The film also earned Celine Song the Best Director award, with American Fiction‘s Cord Jefferson and May December‘s Samy Burch earning screenplay honors.
On the television side, The Last of Us collected two awards: Nick Offerman for Best Supporting Performance in a New Scripted Series and Keivonn Montreal Woodard for Best Breakthrough Performance in a New Scripted Series. Beef also netted two wins, with Ali Wong awarded Best Lead Performance in a New Scripted Series and the show earning the Best New Scripted Series award.
2024 Film Independent Spirit Award Nominations
Best Feature (Award given to the producer.)
All of Us Strangers
Producers: Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin,...
- 2/26/2024
- by Rebecca Murray
- Showbiz Junkies
Another big award show took place this weekend (in addition to the SAG Awards), the Film Independent Spirit Awards, which celebrates indie film and TV. One thing about this awards show is that their idea of independent sometimes makes me scratch my head a bit, with HBO’s big-budget The Last of Us nominated a whole bunch in the TV category, along with Netflix’s Beef and several other streaming shows, which I’m not sure one could call independent. For films, there’s a $30 million budget cap. For TV, I’m honestly not sure what the benchmark is because Last of Us was notoriously an expensive show to shoot, costing at least $100 million.
Indeed, The Last of Us won some key awards on the TV side, winning Best Supporting Performance (for Nick Offerman) and Best Breakthrough Performance (for Keivonn Montreal Woodard). Over on the film side, American Fiction and...
Indeed, The Last of Us won some key awards on the TV side, winning Best Supporting Performance (for Nick Offerman) and Best Breakthrough Performance (for Keivonn Montreal Woodard). Over on the film side, American Fiction and...
- 2/26/2024
- by Chris Bumbray
- JoBlo.com
The best in independent film and television were honored at the 2024 Film Independent Spirit Awards!
Plenty of A-List stars were in attendance at the event on Sunday afternoon (February 25) at the Santa Monica Pier in Santa Monica, Calif.
Movies are only eligible for a Spirit Award if they have a budget of less than $30 million, so there are some awards favorites like Barbie, Oppenheimer, and Killers of the Flower Moon that are not nominated.
American Fiction, May December, and Past Lives lead the pack this year with five nominations each.
Make sure to check out our post with photos of Every celeb who attended the event! Also check out our best dressed list.
Head inside to see the full list of winners…
Keep scrolling to see the full list of winners…
Best Feature (Award given to the producer)
All of Us Strangers
Producers: Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin, Sarah Harvey
American Fiction
Producers: Cord Jefferson,...
Plenty of A-List stars were in attendance at the event on Sunday afternoon (February 25) at the Santa Monica Pier in Santa Monica, Calif.
Movies are only eligible for a Spirit Award if they have a budget of less than $30 million, so there are some awards favorites like Barbie, Oppenheimer, and Killers of the Flower Moon that are not nominated.
American Fiction, May December, and Past Lives lead the pack this year with five nominations each.
Make sure to check out our post with photos of Every celeb who attended the event! Also check out our best dressed list.
Head inside to see the full list of winners…
Keep scrolling to see the full list of winners…
Best Feature (Award given to the producer)
All of Us Strangers
Producers: Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin, Sarah Harvey
American Fiction
Producers: Cord Jefferson,...
- 2/26/2024
- by Just Jared
- Just Jared
The 2024 Independent Spirit Awards took place on Sunday at the traditional Santa Monica beach tent location, with Aidy Bryant hosting. “Past Lives” took home the coveted Best Feature award, with “Beef” being honored as Best New Scripted Series. Check out the full list of winners and nominees below.
Best Feature
“Past Lives”
Producers: David Hinojosa, Pamela Koffler, Christine Vachon
“All of Us Strangers”
Producers: Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin, Sarah Harvey
“American Fiction”
Producers: Cord Jefferson, Jermaine Johnson, Nikos Karamigios, Ben LeClair
“May December”
Producers: Jessica Elbaum, Will Ferrell, Grant S. Johnson, Pamela Koffler, Tyler W. Konney, Sophie Mas, Natalie Portman, Christine Vachon
“Passages”
Producers: Michel Merkt, Saïd Ben Saïd
“We Grown Now”
Producers: Minhal Baig, Joe Pirro
Best Lead Performance
Jeffrey Wright, “American Fiction”
Jessica Chastain, “Memory”
Greta Lee, “Past Lives”
Trace Lysette, “Monica”
Natalie Portman, “May December”
Judy Reyes, “Birth/Rebirth”
Franz Rogowski, “Passages”
Andrew Scott, “All of Us Strangers”
Teyana Taylor,...
Best Feature
“Past Lives”
Producers: David Hinojosa, Pamela Koffler, Christine Vachon
“All of Us Strangers”
Producers: Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin, Sarah Harvey
“American Fiction”
Producers: Cord Jefferson, Jermaine Johnson, Nikos Karamigios, Ben LeClair
“May December”
Producers: Jessica Elbaum, Will Ferrell, Grant S. Johnson, Pamela Koffler, Tyler W. Konney, Sophie Mas, Natalie Portman, Christine Vachon
“Passages”
Producers: Michel Merkt, Saïd Ben Saïd
“We Grown Now”
Producers: Minhal Baig, Joe Pirro
Best Lead Performance
Jeffrey Wright, “American Fiction”
Jessica Chastain, “Memory”
Greta Lee, “Past Lives”
Trace Lysette, “Monica”
Natalie Portman, “May December”
Judy Reyes, “Birth/Rebirth”
Franz Rogowski, “Passages”
Andrew Scott, “All of Us Strangers”
Teyana Taylor,...
- 2/25/2024
- by William Earl
- Variety Film + TV
Cord Jefferson’s American Fiction took home top honors at the 24th Annual Black Reel Awards.
Cord Jefferson’s directorial debut, based on novelist Percival Ellison’s Erasure, took home six Black Reel Awards including Outstanding Picture. Jefferson was the biggest single winner of the night. Jefferson nabbed awards on five nominations, marking the most wins in a single night in Black Reel Award history. Jefferson also became the first person to sweep all the directing and writing awards in the same year. To round out the total victories for Jefferson’s film, Jeffrey Wright secured the award for Outstanding Lead Performance bringing Fiction’s total to six on the night. Wright became the thirteenth actor to win awards for Lead and Supporting Performances in their career.
Oprah Winfrey’s production of the musical version of The Color Purple was awarded the most Black Reel Awards with a grand total...
Cord Jefferson’s directorial debut, based on novelist Percival Ellison’s Erasure, took home six Black Reel Awards including Outstanding Picture. Jefferson was the biggest single winner of the night. Jefferson nabbed awards on five nominations, marking the most wins in a single night in Black Reel Award history. Jefferson also became the first person to sweep all the directing and writing awards in the same year. To round out the total victories for Jefferson’s film, Jeffrey Wright secured the award for Outstanding Lead Performance bringing Fiction’s total to six on the night. Wright became the thirteenth actor to win awards for Lead and Supporting Performances in their career.
Oprah Winfrey’s production of the musical version of The Color Purple was awarded the most Black Reel Awards with a grand total...
- 1/17/2024
- by Valerie Complex
- Deadline Film + TV
Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.
All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt (Raven Jackson)
A film that feels uprooted from deep beneath the earth, Raven Jackson’s poetic, patient debut is a distillation of cinema to its purest form, a stunning patchwork of experience and memory. Tethered around the life of Mack, a Black woman from Mississippi, as we witness glimpses of her childhood, teenage years, and beyond, All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt becomes a sensory experience unlike anything else this year. Shot in beautiful 35mm by Jomo Fray and edited by Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s collaborator Lee Chatametikool, there’s a reverence for nature and joy for human connection that seems all too rarified in today’s landscape of American filmmaking. – Jordan R.
Where to Stream: VOD...
All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt (Raven Jackson)
A film that feels uprooted from deep beneath the earth, Raven Jackson’s poetic, patient debut is a distillation of cinema to its purest form, a stunning patchwork of experience and memory. Tethered around the life of Mack, a Black woman from Mississippi, as we witness glimpses of her childhood, teenage years, and beyond, All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt becomes a sensory experience unlike anything else this year. Shot in beautiful 35mm by Jomo Fray and edited by Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s collaborator Lee Chatametikool, there’s a reverence for nature and joy for human connection that seems all too rarified in today’s landscape of American filmmaking. – Jordan R.
Where to Stream: VOD...
- 1/5/2024
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Ahhh.. seems just like yesterday that Film Independent President Josh Welsh was on stage at the 2023 Film Independent Spirit Awards announcing the kickoff to our year-long #AD30 celebration, commemorating three uninterrupted decades—pandemics, strikes and recessions be damned!—of Film Independent Artist Development programs.
Of course, in reality that announcement was one full awards cycle ago, back when the Past Lives, Earth Mamas and May Decembers of the world were but a flicker in eyes of industry plaudit prognosticators. But the story of #AD30 has only grown in the interim.
Look no further than the program that started it all, Project Involve, which today announced the 27 new Fellows joining as part of its 2024 cohort—the 31st overall such cohort in a long line of inclusive, up-and-coming industry players. Project Involve alumni include Lulu Wang (Expats), Linda Yvette Chávez (Flamin’ Hot), Jomo Fray (All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt), Effie T. Brown...
Of course, in reality that announcement was one full awards cycle ago, back when the Past Lives, Earth Mamas and May Decembers of the world were but a flicker in eyes of industry plaudit prognosticators. But the story of #AD30 has only grown in the interim.
Look no further than the program that started it all, Project Involve, which today announced the 27 new Fellows joining as part of its 2024 cohort—the 31st overall such cohort in a long line of inclusive, up-and-coming industry players. Project Involve alumni include Lulu Wang (Expats), Linda Yvette Chávez (Flamin’ Hot), Jomo Fray (All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt), Effie T. Brown...
- 12/19/2023
- by Film Independent
- Film Independent News & More
“A cinematographer is a visual psychiatrist–moving an audience through a movie […] making them think the way you want them to think, painting pictures in the dark,” said the late, great Gordon Willis. As our year-end coverage continues, we must pay dues. From talented newcomers to seasoned professionals, we’ve rounded up the examples that have most impressed us this year.
All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt (Jomo Fray)
Raven Jackson’s directorial debut All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt slows down the cycle of life. The camera rests on hands, on backs, on people connected through touch, sound, and smell. There isn’t any rush, any intention to leave these moments. Jackson and cinematographer Jomo Fray find beauty, grace, and life in two people holding hands, dancing, skinning a fish, and the trees passing while a family drives down the road. The film doesn’t just feel like a...
All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt (Jomo Fray)
Raven Jackson’s directorial debut All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt slows down the cycle of life. The camera rests on hands, on backs, on people connected through touch, sound, and smell. There isn’t any rush, any intention to leave these moments. Jackson and cinematographer Jomo Fray find beauty, grace, and life in two people holding hands, dancing, skinning a fish, and the trees passing while a family drives down the road. The film doesn’t just feel like a...
- 12/6/2023
- by The Film Stage
- The Film Stage
While the likes of Oppenheimer, Barbie, and Killers of the Moon will likely battle it out at the Oscars, Film Independent Spirit Awards is putting the spotlight on the indie productions of the year, with budget ranges from $10,000 to $28 million. May December, Past Lives, and American Fiction lead the nominations for the 39th ceremony, each taking five nods.
Other highlights include All of Us Strangers and Passages for Best Feature, All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt and Earth Mama for Best First Feature, Kokomo City and The Mother of All Lies for Best Documentary, Glenn Howerton for BlackBerry, Marin Ireland and Anne Hathaway for Eileen, Marshawn Lynch for Bottoms, How to Blow Up a Pipeline for Best Editing, Godland and Tótem for Best International Film, and more.
See the nominations below ahead of the ceremony on Sunday, Feb. 25, 2024 (a full two weeks before the Oscars), hosted by Aidy Bryant.
Best...
Other highlights include All of Us Strangers and Passages for Best Feature, All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt and Earth Mama for Best First Feature, Kokomo City and The Mother of All Lies for Best Documentary, Glenn Howerton for BlackBerry, Marin Ireland and Anne Hathaway for Eileen, Marshawn Lynch for Bottoms, How to Blow Up a Pipeline for Best Editing, Godland and Tótem for Best International Film, and more.
See the nominations below ahead of the ceremony on Sunday, Feb. 25, 2024 (a full two weeks before the Oscars), hosted by Aidy Bryant.
Best...
- 12/5/2023
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
Erika Alexander stars as Coraline and Jeffrey Wright as Thelonious “Monk” Ellison in ‘American Fiction’ (Photo credit: Claire Folger © 2023 Orion Releasing LLC)
American Fiction, Past Lives, and May December lead the list of the 2024 Film Independent Spirit Awards. Each of the three films picked up five nominations and will be going head-to-head in the Best Film and Best Supporting Performance categories. Films and TV shows earning four nominations included The Holdovers, I’m a Virgo, The Last of Us, and Passages.
The 39th Film Independent Spirit Awards will be held on February 25 on the beach in Santa Monica. Aidy Bryant (Saturday Night Live) is on board to host.
“This year’s exciting group of Spirit Award nominees reflect the undeniable strength and vitality of independent storytelling – this is the beating heart of film culture today,” said Josh Welsh, President of Film Independent. “It’s especially thrilling to see so many nominees...
American Fiction, Past Lives, and May December lead the list of the 2024 Film Independent Spirit Awards. Each of the three films picked up five nominations and will be going head-to-head in the Best Film and Best Supporting Performance categories. Films and TV shows earning four nominations included The Holdovers, I’m a Virgo, The Last of Us, and Passages.
The 39th Film Independent Spirit Awards will be held on February 25 on the beach in Santa Monica. Aidy Bryant (Saturday Night Live) is on board to host.
“This year’s exciting group of Spirit Award nominees reflect the undeniable strength and vitality of independent storytelling – this is the beating heart of film culture today,” said Josh Welsh, President of Film Independent. “It’s especially thrilling to see so many nominees...
- 12/5/2023
- by Rebecca Murray
- Showbiz Junkies
Ceremony to take place on Santa Monica Beach on February 25, 2024.
The 39th Film Independent Spirit Awards nominations have been announced and May December, American Fiction, and Past Lives lead the field with five nods apiece.
The Holdovers earned four and there were three for All Of Us Strangers – winner of seven Bifas at the weekend – as the nominations were announced on Tuesday. A24 leads the studio field with 11 nominations, followed by Netflix on 10.
Andrew Scott for All Of Us Strangers, Jessica Chastain for Memory, Greta Lee for Past Lives, Franz Rogowski for Passages, and Jeffrey Wright for American Fiction are...
The 39th Film Independent Spirit Awards nominations have been announced and May December, American Fiction, and Past Lives lead the field with five nods apiece.
The Holdovers earned four and there were three for All Of Us Strangers – winner of seven Bifas at the weekend – as the nominations were announced on Tuesday. A24 leads the studio field with 11 nominations, followed by Netflix on 10.
Andrew Scott for All Of Us Strangers, Jessica Chastain for Memory, Greta Lee for Past Lives, Franz Rogowski for Passages, and Jeffrey Wright for American Fiction are...
- 12/5/2023
- by Jeremy Kay
- ScreenDaily
Ceremony to take place on Santa Monica Beach on February 25, 2024.
The Film Independent 39th Film Independent Spirit Awards have been announced and May December, American Fiction, and Past Lives lead the field with five nods apiece.
The Holdovers earned four and All Of Us Strangers three as the nominations were announced on Tuesday. A24 leads the studio field with 11 nominations, followed by Netflix on 10.
Andrew Scott for All of Us Strangers, Jessica Chastain for Memory, Greta Lee for Past Lives, Franz Rogowski for Passages, and Jeffrey Wright for American Fiction are in the running fort the gender-neutral lead acting category.
The Film Independent 39th Film Independent Spirit Awards have been announced and May December, American Fiction, and Past Lives lead the field with five nods apiece.
The Holdovers earned four and All Of Us Strangers three as the nominations were announced on Tuesday. A24 leads the studio field with 11 nominations, followed by Netflix on 10.
Andrew Scott for All of Us Strangers, Jessica Chastain for Memory, Greta Lee for Past Lives, Franz Rogowski for Passages, and Jeffrey Wright for American Fiction are in the running fort the gender-neutral lead acting category.
- 12/5/2023
- by Jeremy Kay
- ScreenDaily
The full list of nominations for the 2024 Film Independent Spirit Awards has been announced!
Movies are only eligible for a Spirit Award if they have a budget of less than $30 million, so there are some awards favorites like Maestro and Killers of the Flower Moon that are not nominated here.
Aidy Bryant is set to host the 2024 awards ceremony, which will take place on February 25. The event will no longer air on television and will instead stream on YouTube.
American Fiction, May December, and Past Lives lead the pack this year with five nominations each.
Head inside to check out the full list of nominations…
Keep scrolling to see the full list of nominations…
Best Feature (Award given to the producer)
All of Us Strangers
Producers: Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin, Sarah Harvey
American Fiction
Producers: Cord Jefferson, Jermaine Johnson, Nikos Karamigios, Ben LeClair
May December
Producers: Jessica Elbaum, Will Ferrell,...
Movies are only eligible for a Spirit Award if they have a budget of less than $30 million, so there are some awards favorites like Maestro and Killers of the Flower Moon that are not nominated here.
Aidy Bryant is set to host the 2024 awards ceremony, which will take place on February 25. The event will no longer air on television and will instead stream on YouTube.
American Fiction, May December, and Past Lives lead the pack this year with five nominations each.
Head inside to check out the full list of nominations…
Keep scrolling to see the full list of nominations…
Best Feature (Award given to the producer)
All of Us Strangers
Producers: Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin, Sarah Harvey
American Fiction
Producers: Cord Jefferson, Jermaine Johnson, Nikos Karamigios, Ben LeClair
May December
Producers: Jessica Elbaum, Will Ferrell,...
- 12/5/2023
- by Just Jared
- Just Jared
Definitely the type of film that could end up jockeying for a position at a fall film festival later in the year instead, RaMell Ross who made the miracle (and critically darling of a docu) in the Sundance preemed Hale County This Morning, This Evening moved toward fiction with an adaption of the Colson Whitehead novel The Nickel Boys – a Pulitzer Prize winner. With some major studio weight supporting the project and an indie veteran producer (Joslyn Barnes is also the co-writer) backing the piece and stain in 60s Americana. Starring Aunjanue Ellis, Ethan Herisse, Fred Hechinger, Hamish Linklater and Brandon Wilson, the Cinematography on this project happens to be Jomo Fray – he lensed All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt.…...
- 11/15/2023
- by Eric Lavallée
- IONCINEMA.com
“Lyrical” is often used to describe poet-turned-filmmaker Raven Jackson’s first feature film, “All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt.” Inspired by Terence Malick and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki’s collaboration on “Tree of Life,” Jackson and cinematographer Jomo Fray wanted to make a film that had a unified aesthetic that came through process and principles rather than rehearsal and refining of the camera work.
“Jomo and I started off talking about the emotionality of the film before we were thinking visually,” Jackson told IndieWire. “What feelings we were aiming to evoke with the images. And eventually Jomo had a suggestion to do a manifesto.”
Before shooting every day of production on the decades-spanning exploration of a woman’s life in the South, Jackson and Fray read aloud their 12-point manifesto. Although the collaborators had a shot list and a visual language for the film, the manifesto served as a way of...
“Jomo and I started off talking about the emotionality of the film before we were thinking visually,” Jackson told IndieWire. “What feelings we were aiming to evoke with the images. And eventually Jomo had a suggestion to do a manifesto.”
Before shooting every day of production on the decades-spanning exploration of a woman’s life in the South, Jackson and Fray read aloud their 12-point manifesto. Although the collaborators had a shot list and a visual language for the film, the manifesto served as a way of...
- 11/9/2023
- by Chris O'Falt
- Indiewire
Raven Jackson’s All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt is a small miracle. A feature debut from the Tennessee-born writer and director, the A24-backed film acts as a meditation on life, a poetic retelling of moments that wash and wade, tug and pull, and shape and break one’s heart. Jackson composes her drama as a collection of experiences for Mack, played by Kaylee Nicole Johnson in childhood and Charleen McClure in adulthood, snapshots of a Black woman’s life in Mississippi. Both actors imbue reality into this character, a sense that Mack is so much more than just a character in a movie. Jackson tells Mack’s story without a need for linear consistency, instead deciding to focus on the people, places, sounds, and feelings that molded her.
Never hurried, the 92-minute film takes its time in sadness and sweetness in equal measure, balancing between 10-minute hugs and...
Never hurried, the 92-minute film takes its time in sadness and sweetness in equal measure, balancing between 10-minute hugs and...
- 11/3/2023
- by Michael Frank
- The Film Stage
Film cameras strike big time as it seems that Dp chose celluloid to shoot the Oscar 2024 (96th Academy Awards) contenders. The most used camera is the Arricam (Lt and St) which, you have to admit, is an amazing fact. Additionally, there are new cameras on that list. Explore the camera charts below based on the IndieWire Cinematography Survey.
Oscar 2024: Camera Manufacturers Chart Oscar 2024 contenders: Cameras and lenses
IndieWire reached out to the directors of photography whose films are among the most critically acclaimed of the year, in order to explore which cameras and lenses they used (Make sure to read the IndieWire’s article where you can find Dp’s explanation of how they used their gear). As the tradition calls, we took the data to build friendly charts, trying to find a significant tendency and segmentation. Surprisingly, the most used camera is the Arricam. First,...
Oscar 2024: Camera Manufacturers Chart Oscar 2024 contenders: Cameras and lenses
IndieWire reached out to the directors of photography whose films are among the most critically acclaimed of the year, in order to explore which cameras and lenses they used (Make sure to read the IndieWire’s article where you can find Dp’s explanation of how they used their gear). As the tradition calls, we took the data to build friendly charts, trying to find a significant tendency and segmentation. Surprisingly, the most used camera is the Arricam. First,...
- 10/20/2023
- by Yossy Mendelovich
- YMCinema
Poet Raven Jackson writes and directs “All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt,” the Barry Jenkins-produced Sundance breakout film now distributed by A24.
Oscar winner Jenkins serves as the executive producer of the decades-spanning period piece, which was acquired by A24 at 2023 Sundance. “All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt” will also screen during this year’s NYFF Main Slate lineup.
Per the official synopsis, the film is a lyrical, decades-spanning exploration across a woman’s life in Mississippi. Charleen McClure, “Obi-Wan Kenobi” breakout Moses Ingram, Reginald Helms Jr., and Zainab Jah star, with Sheila Atim and Chris Chalk rounding out the cast. The film follows a West African family in the South. Cinematographer Jomo Fray used 35mm film to capture the textured history of Mack, played by McClure.
Jenkins has an eye for up-and-coming talent, with the “Moonlight” director recently producing Charlotte Wells’ debut “Aftersun,” which was nominated for an...
Oscar winner Jenkins serves as the executive producer of the decades-spanning period piece, which was acquired by A24 at 2023 Sundance. “All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt” will also screen during this year’s NYFF Main Slate lineup.
Per the official synopsis, the film is a lyrical, decades-spanning exploration across a woman’s life in Mississippi. Charleen McClure, “Obi-Wan Kenobi” breakout Moses Ingram, Reginald Helms Jr., and Zainab Jah star, with Sheila Atim and Chris Chalk rounding out the cast. The film follows a West African family in the South. Cinematographer Jomo Fray used 35mm film to capture the textured history of Mack, played by McClure.
Jenkins has an eye for up-and-coming talent, with the “Moonlight” director recently producing Charlotte Wells’ debut “Aftersun,” which was nominated for an...
- 8/9/2023
- by Samantha Bergeson
- Indiewire
Do you ever feel like your life isn't your own? Perhaps you feel as if there are too many people trying to tell you what you should do, what you should feel, and so on and so forth. Not to use a cliche and jokey phrase, but we live in a society that demands to know what we are doing at every single moment of our lives, never allowing anything to be truly private. Even our secret thoughts and desires are encouraged to be shared with others via private channels. Wouldn't you like just one moment of your life where you can feel totally, completely in control?
Celestina (Kiersey Clemons) certainly would, especially on the day of her non-wedding as seen throughout Tayarisha Poe's sophomore feature, "The Young Wife." She's stuck in a soul-sucking job, dealing with regret over abandoning her close-knit friend group after a tragedy, and feels...
Celestina (Kiersey Clemons) certainly would, especially on the day of her non-wedding as seen throughout Tayarisha Poe's sophomore feature, "The Young Wife." She's stuck in a soul-sucking job, dealing with regret over abandoning her close-knit friend group after a tragedy, and feels...
- 3/17/2023
- by Erin Brady
- Slash Film
The 2023 Sundance Film Festival once again returned to Park City, Utah in-person, but it also had an online program that hosted the majority of its film slate. However, some titles, such as Celine Song’s Past Lives and John Carney’s Flora and Son, only played for in-person attendants. Showbiz Cheat Sheet only covered Sundance remotely for 2023, but here are the 10 films we saw that stood above the rest.
L-r: ‘Passages,’ ‘Rye Lane,’ ‘Shayda,’ and ‘A Thousand and One’ | Mubi, Searchlight Pictures, Courtesy of Sundance Institute, Courtesy of Sundance Institute 10. ‘Fairyland’ L-r: Cody Fern as Eddie Body, Scoot McNairy as Steve Abbott, and Nessa Dougherty as Younger Alysia Abbott | Courtesy of Sundance Institute
Fairyland marks the directorial feature debut for Andrew Durham, which follows a young girl who moves to 1970s San Francisco with her gay dad after her mom’s death. It’s based on a marvelous novel of the same name.
L-r: ‘Passages,’ ‘Rye Lane,’ ‘Shayda,’ and ‘A Thousand and One’ | Mubi, Searchlight Pictures, Courtesy of Sundance Institute, Courtesy of Sundance Institute 10. ‘Fairyland’ L-r: Cody Fern as Eddie Body, Scoot McNairy as Steve Abbott, and Nessa Dougherty as Younger Alysia Abbott | Courtesy of Sundance Institute
Fairyland marks the directorial feature debut for Andrew Durham, which follows a young girl who moves to 1970s San Francisco with her gay dad after her mom’s death. It’s based on a marvelous novel of the same name.
- 1/31/2023
- by Jeff Nelson
- Showbiz Cheat Sheet
The film medium has the power to tell stories using a wide assortment of different narrative techniques. Raven Jackson’s All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt operates outside of the typical feature, running as a piece of visual and auditory poetry. Its meanings take many shapes and forms, becoming more of an experience that you feel, rather than narratively follow.
‘All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt’ creates snapshots in time Sheila Atim as Evelyn | A24
The story follows a Black woman in Mississippi named Mack (Charleen McClure). All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt takes a look at snapshots across various crucial points of her life to paint a picture from childhood to adulthood, looking at her mother (The Woman King‘s Sheila Atim) and other important figures that impacted her along the way.
Jackson makes her directorial feature debut, dedicating it to the generations of people that came before us,...
‘All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt’ creates snapshots in time Sheila Atim as Evelyn | A24
The story follows a Black woman in Mississippi named Mack (Charleen McClure). All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt takes a look at snapshots across various crucial points of her life to paint a picture from childhood to adulthood, looking at her mother (The Woman King‘s Sheila Atim) and other important figures that impacted her along the way.
Jackson makes her directorial feature debut, dedicating it to the generations of people that came before us,...
- 1/30/2023
- by Jeff Nelson
- Showbiz Cheat Sheet
Raven Jackson’s directorial debut All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt is a distillation of cinema to its purest form, a stunning patchwork of experience and memory. Daring in its formal gambits but universal for how it explores humanity’s connection with nature, loss, and love, it’s among few films in the history of Sundance that genuinely seems to advance the language and possibilities of cinema. With adoring notes of Terrence Malick, Andrei Tarkovsky, Carlos Reygadas, and Julie Dash, Jackson isn’t wholly reinventing what has come before, but rather pushing this poetic-based variety into thrilling new territories.
Freed from the shackles of linear storytelling, Jackson jumps around the life of Mack, a Black woman from Mississippi, as we witness glimpses of her childhood, teenage years, and beyond. We begin with her as a child (Kaylee Nicole Johnson) fishing with her father (Chris Chalk), though it’s many minutes...
Freed from the shackles of linear storytelling, Jackson jumps around the life of Mack, a Black woman from Mississippi, as we witness glimpses of her childhood, teenage years, and beyond. We begin with her as a child (Kaylee Nicole Johnson) fishing with her father (Chris Chalk), though it’s many minutes...
- 1/26/2023
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
It was 2019 and Oscar-winning writer, director and producer Barry Jenkins had been contacted by a friend to help with a new artists residency in Tennessee.
It would come complete with room and board and workshops, Miriam Bale, who runs the program at the Indie Memphis Film Festival, would tell him, and would give participants space to generate a script. Among the applications was Raven Jackson. It was there that Jenkins would first be introduced to her script for All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt. But it wouldn’t be until a year later, while he was working on his Emmy-nominated series The Underground Railroad, that it would come to his full attention.
“Mark Ceryak, another producer here at my company Pastel, said, ‘Hey, I just read the script. It’s really beautiful, and apparently, you know the filmmaker from this program in Memphis,” Jenkins tells The Hollywood Reporter. “I was like,...
It would come complete with room and board and workshops, Miriam Bale, who runs the program at the Indie Memphis Film Festival, would tell him, and would give participants space to generate a script. Among the applications was Raven Jackson. It was there that Jenkins would first be introduced to her script for All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt. But it wouldn’t be until a year later, while he was working on his Emmy-nominated series The Underground Railroad, that it would come to his full attention.
“Mark Ceryak, another producer here at my company Pastel, said, ‘Hey, I just read the script. It’s really beautiful, and apparently, you know the filmmaker from this program in Memphis,” Jenkins tells The Hollywood Reporter. “I was like,...
- 1/26/2023
- by Abbey White
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Raven Jackson started out as a poet, a background that is at the heart of her eloquent, imagistic first feature. All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt presents the life of a Black woman in the rural South through elegantly composed vignettes. On paper, that approach sounds too precious to live. As the story follows Mack from her girlhood in the 1970s across several decades, the film has minimal dialogue and a narrative that offers fragments of her life in time-shifting episodes. But miraculously, all its elements come together. Jackson’s risky, beautifully realized film puts a pure artistic vision on screen.
Jackson has cited Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust as an influence, and, as in that groundbreaking 1991 film, each scene is so deliberately composed that it conveys a wealth of information and emotion. Jomo Fray’s lush cinematography, shot on 35 mm, grounds the story in the landscape of woods,...
Jackson has cited Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust as an influence, and, as in that groundbreaking 1991 film, each scene is so deliberately composed that it conveys a wealth of information and emotion. Jomo Fray’s lush cinematography, shot on 35 mm, grounds the story in the landscape of woods,...
- 1/24/2023
- by Caryn James
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Nestled deep in the first half of “All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt,” once we have acclimated to its sensuous audiovisual idioms, is an encounter between former lovers Mack (Charleen McClure) and Wood (Reginald Helms Jr.), no longer sharing a mutual path. Few words escape their lips, but their hands hold onto one another with loving desperation, as if hoping that through a long embrace, everything unsaid could, by osmosis, seep into their bodies. Their kinetic exchange — with fingers clasped tightly that communicate their unwillingness to let go — sits in nearly silent contemplation.
Elsewhere in writer-director Raven Jackson’s debut feature, however, the perpetual cacophony of nature in the rural South scores the rich imagery like a tireless orchestra that ties everything we witness back to the land. The sounds of torrential rain drenching everything in its way, of crickets and frogs serenading the moon, all intermingle in communion with...
Elsewhere in writer-director Raven Jackson’s debut feature, however, the perpetual cacophony of nature in the rural South scores the rich imagery like a tireless orchestra that ties everything we witness back to the land. The sounds of torrential rain drenching everything in its way, of crickets and frogs serenading the moon, all intermingle in communion with...
- 1/22/2023
- by Carlos Aguilar
- The Wrap
In the American South, they’ve been known to say, “A child’s gotta eat their share of dirt.” And Raven Jackson’s thoughtful, fragmentary portrait of a Black woman over four decades of rural Mississippian life certainly encompasses the kind of hard life lessons that could be thus summed up. But the strange poetry of the film’s title also gently turns that harsh homily on its head, instead relating it to the tradition, inherited from African ancestors and still relatively common in parts of the country, for Black women to gather across generations and harvest little scoops of pale dirt from the roadside — actually the chalky mineral kaolinite which is plentiful across the southeastern U.S. — to eat, as a kind of communal ritual.
“All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt” is deeply invested in the investigation of tradition, family and memory, and the sensory, evocative language of the...
“All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt” is deeply invested in the investigation of tradition, family and memory, and the sensory, evocative language of the...
- 1/22/2023
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
Editor’s note: This review was originally published at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. A24 releases the film in theaters on Friday, November 3.
A whispered symphony of sense memories that cycles through the decades like rain water — heavy with images and ambient sounds that trickle down from the generations above before they’re absorbed into the earth and suffused back into the air — the vague but vividly rendered “All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt” runs a little drier every time writer-director Raven Jackson loops back to squeeze another drop of meaning from the textures and traditions that connect a Black Mississippi woman to the place where she was born (and vice-versa).
Her name is Mackenzie, she’s played by a small troupe of different actresses over the course of Jackson’s freeform debut, and the body they share between them serves as a kind of living conduit between then, now, and whatever comes next.
A whispered symphony of sense memories that cycles through the decades like rain water — heavy with images and ambient sounds that trickle down from the generations above before they’re absorbed into the earth and suffused back into the air — the vague but vividly rendered “All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt” runs a little drier every time writer-director Raven Jackson loops back to squeeze another drop of meaning from the textures and traditions that connect a Black Mississippi woman to the place where she was born (and vice-versa).
Her name is Mackenzie, she’s played by a small troupe of different actresses over the course of Jackson’s freeform debut, and the body they share between them serves as a kind of living conduit between then, now, and whatever comes next.
- 1/22/2023
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
Fresh off screenings at Toronto and San Sebastian, U.S. director Marian Mathias is still surprised her feature debut “Runner” connected with audiences and programmers alike.
Produced by Joy Jorgensen, the intimate drama is a Killjoy Films production made in association with Pigasus Pictures. Easy Riders Films and Man Alive co-produce. Heretic, which is handling international sales, shared the films trailer in exclusivity with Variety.
“I was thinking about it the other night. As a young filmmaker – and I am very fresh-faced to the scene – how do I navigate these waters? Do I stay true to my voice or shift to satisfy others?” wonders the director.
“I decided to be more authentic to what I find interesting. I am so happy there is a space for it at these festivals.”
Following a girl named Haas (German-born Hannah Schiller), raised by a single father somewhere in Missouri and burdened by his manic behavior,...
Produced by Joy Jorgensen, the intimate drama is a Killjoy Films production made in association with Pigasus Pictures. Easy Riders Films and Man Alive co-produce. Heretic, which is handling international sales, shared the films trailer in exclusivity with Variety.
“I was thinking about it the other night. As a young filmmaker – and I am very fresh-faced to the scene – how do I navigate these waters? Do I stay true to my voice or shift to satisfy others?” wonders the director.
“I decided to be more authentic to what I find interesting. I am so happy there is a space for it at these festivals.”
Following a girl named Haas (German-born Hannah Schiller), raised by a single father somewhere in Missouri and burdened by his manic behavior,...
- 9/19/2022
- by Marta Balaga
- Variety Film + TV
While this definitely feels like a bonafide Sundance film, of all the predictions you’ll find here we have no idea how far into the post production journey the film is, and when you consider the amount of inventory the A24 folks have – a fall fest debut or 2023 Sundance positioning might be more logical. Raven Jackson‘s All Dirt Roads Taste Of Salt was shot in Tennessee and was produced by cool kids in Pastel’s Barry Jenkins and Adele Romanski. Shot on film, Jomo Fray (Selah and the Spades and Port Authority) was the cinematographer. A poet, fotog and filmmaker, Jackson’s short Nettles was selected for San Sebastián.…...
- 11/22/2021
- by Eric Lavallée
- IONCINEMA.com
With his many years working at Telluride Film Festival, not to mention the stellar cast and crew of his own features, Barry Jenkins has a clear eye for talent. As he puts the finishing touches on his adaptation of The Underground Railroad for Amazon, he’s now reuniting with A24 to spotlight a new creative voice in the filmmaking world.
Deadline reports that Jenkins’ company Pastel and A24 will produce All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt, the directorial debut of Raven Jackson. The filmmaker, poet, and photographer has been making an impressive string of short films, including Nettles and A Guide to Breathing Underwater, both of which are streaming on The Criterion Channel.
Shot by Jomo Fray (Selah and the Spades), her debut will chronicle decades in the life of a Black woman in rural Tennessee and production is eyed to begin this year. With her script picked by Jenkins...
Deadline reports that Jenkins’ company Pastel and A24 will produce All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt, the directorial debut of Raven Jackson. The filmmaker, poet, and photographer has been making an impressive string of short films, including Nettles and A Guide to Breathing Underwater, both of which are streaming on The Criterion Channel.
Shot by Jomo Fray (Selah and the Spades), her debut will chronicle decades in the life of a Black woman in rural Tennessee and production is eyed to begin this year. With her script picked by Jenkins...
- 2/25/2021
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
The psychology of power sits at the center of director Tayarisha Poe’s debut feature, “Selah and the Spades,” about the leader of one of five secret factions at an elite boarding school in Pennsylvania. The film, which generated buzz at Sundance last year, bows April 17 on Amazon Prime.
Key to the movie’s look and tone was to invest that power in Selah Summers (Lovie Simone), head of Haldwell School’s most powerful faction, the Spades, which handles the clandestine buying and selling of drugs and alcohol among the student body. Though nearing graduation, she’s not considering her academic future but rather what will happen when she vacates her dominant social position once school comes to an end. She’s not into boys or pursuing a relationship either. She’s looking for an heir to her throne, yet believes friendships can compromise power.
For cinematographer Jomo Fray (“No Future...
Key to the movie’s look and tone was to invest that power in Selah Summers (Lovie Simone), head of Haldwell School’s most powerful faction, the Spades, which handles the clandestine buying and selling of drugs and alcohol among the student body. Though nearing graduation, she’s not considering her academic future but rather what will happen when she vacates her dominant social position once school comes to an end. She’s not into boys or pursuing a relationship either. She’s looking for an heir to her throne, yet believes friendships can compromise power.
For cinematographer Jomo Fray (“No Future...
- 4/17/2020
- by Jazz Tangcay
- Variety Film + TV
At the Haldwell School, the posh Pennsylvania boarding school that serves as the location for Tayarisha Poe’s “Selah and the Spades,” they call the student cliques that dominate campus life “factions.” But they might as well call them “families,” because a few minutes at Haldwell in Poe’s quietly commanding film will convince you that these five factions run the show in a way that isn’t too far removed from the way the Mafia’s five families ran the underworld in New York City starting in the 1930s.
Sure, there are fewer things like contract killings in this particular story, but “Selah and the Spades” takes the model of high-school movies like “Clueless” and “Pretty in Pink” and throws in a hefty dose of “The Godfather.” Poe’s feature debut, though, has a style all its own, spare but rich and able to make the umpteenth teen movie...
Sure, there are fewer things like contract killings in this particular story, but “Selah and the Spades” takes the model of high-school movies like “Clueless” and “Pretty in Pink” and throws in a hefty dose of “The Godfather.” Poe’s feature debut, though, has a style all its own, spare but rich and able to make the umpteenth teen movie...
- 4/14/2020
- by Steve Pond
- The Wrap
Selling realness. That’s the essence of Harlem’s tight-knit drag ball scene, where dazzling kiki competitions — made popular in 1991’s landmark Lgbt documentary “Paris Is Burning,” and still raging strong all these years later via “RuPaul’s Drag Race” and Ryan Murphy’s “Pose” on TV — celebrate the art of passing as something other than whatever labels society has given you: man as woman, gay as straight, street kid as supermodel. Writer-director Danielle Lessowitz’s likable debut feature, “Port Authority,” arrives decades late to the party, spinning a simple but effective romance in which that same goal of self-transformation is what separates two star-crossed lovers whose worlds collide on the steps of New York’s busiest bus terminal.
Wye, pronounced like the letter Y, is just being herself, cheering on the queer kids as they practice voguing on the Port Authority steps. But as far as straight-identifying Paul (“Dunkirk” discovery Fionn Whitehead) is concerned,...
Wye, pronounced like the letter Y, is just being herself, cheering on the queer kids as they practice voguing on the Port Authority steps. But as far as straight-identifying Paul (“Dunkirk” discovery Fionn Whitehead) is concerned,...
- 5/18/2019
- by Peter Debruge
- Variety Film + TV
Tayarisha Poe is a former 25 New Face of Film; her feature debut, Selah and the Spades, teams her with another New Face, cinematographer Jomo Fray. The titular Selah (Lovie Simone) attends a prep school where, with ferocious discipline, she manages her gang, the Spades. Via email, Fray discussed his long-in-the-making collaboration with Poe. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being hired for this job? Fray: The director, Tayarisha Poe, and I met a few years ago about the project and pretty quickly became totally […]...
- 2/4/2019
- by Filmmaker Staff
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
Tayarisha Poe is a former 25 New Face of Film; her feature debut, Selah and the Spades, teams her with another New Face, cinematographer Jomo Fray. The titular Selah (Lovie Simone) attends a prep school where, with ferocious discipline, she manages her gang, the Spades. Via email, Fray discussed his long-in-the-making collaboration with Poe. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being hired for this job? Fray: The director, Tayarisha Poe, and I met a few years ago about the project and pretty quickly became totally […]...
- 2/4/2019
- by Filmmaker Staff
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
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