Misty Copeland plays Rose, a dance teacher whose house is about to foreclosed on. Pix is from location shooting in 2020.
As I mentioned in a previous post ‘Flower,’ a thirty minute dance film, set on the streets of Oakland and designed to address the issue of homelessness, will premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival on June 8th. Tickets for the film, which stars ballarina Misty Copeland, just went on sale today, so you can use the link below if you’re in NYC and wish to attend. After this screening there will be a performance by Misty’s co-star dancer Babatunji Johnson and a group of hip-hop dancers choreographed by Rich & Tone, who also worked on the film. Misty, director Lauren Finerman, producer Leyla Fayyaz and myself will do a brief Q&A afterwards. I am executive producer and co-created the idea with Misty. Back in 2015 I directed a documentary about Misty, ‘A Ballarina’s Tale,’ so its been a real honor to collaborate with her again.
In addition to the premiere ‘Flower’ will screen three more times at Tribeca as part of the shorts program, so check the schedule for additional screenings.
With Misty and producer Leyla Fayyaz in Park City, Utah earlier this year.
Right now we don’t have distribution outside of Tribeca, but the film will screen in Oakland in the fall. Our dream is to use dance as a language to address other social issues in naturalistic and theatrical settings in a series of similar films. Unlike the other projects I’ve been involved with in the last few years (‘Say Hey, Willie Mays’ for MAX, ‘Dear Mama’ for FX and Hulu), this was a truly independent, really quite experimental, project that was driven by Misty and Leyla’s new production company Life in Motion. It’s been deeply rewarding watching these two emerging producers push to make this unconvential film a reality.
This was very much a labor of love, so we thank all of our supporters, particularly the Ford Foundation whose help was crucial to getting this across the finish line.
https://tribecafilm.com/films/flower-world-premiere-special-event-2023
With choreographer Tone Talauega, dancer Krow and Misty at an early rehearsal in Oakland in September 2019.