The A.V. Rockwell’s directed A Thousand and One has made a powerful appearance at the festival, with memorable performance by Teyana Taylor and Aaron Kingsley Adetola.
The film festival held in Park City, Utah, announced its winners. A Thousand and One bags the U.S. dramatic Grand Jury Prize.
“I felt like the experiences of Black Women in society were overlooked — not only within society, though, but even within our own communities and families. I felt the need to speak on that”
V. Rockwell to IndieWire
The Sundance Festival website describes the Grand Jury Prize-winning movie as an, “elegant ode to the terribly beautiful power of family as an anchor in an ever-changing world, making us into who we are in ways we can only halting understand.” Vogue describe the film as a “tragic story of raw deals and rash decisions into an admiring portrait of survivorship, determination and resourcefulness.”
This year’s Sundance festival showcases a wide array of movies, including family sagas based on the mother-son relationship.
A Thousand and One tells the story of a mother in New York City fighting to keep her son out of the foster-care system. Inez (mother played by the superb Teyana Taylor) is an artist-cum-actor in 1990s New York who moves from shelter to shelter to live life on her own terms and raise her 6-year-old child who is in the foster care system. Inez has no choice but to kidnap her own child from the system.
Rockwell told Indiewire that the story came to her out of an urge to tell the story of black women which she claims are often overlooked. “I felt like the experiences of Black Women in society were overlooked — not only within society, though, but even within our own communities and families. I felt the need to speak on that”.
The movie is set to premier in theatres across the country on March 31, 2023.
