By Ray Pride Pride@moviecitynews.com

ANDREW DOSUNMU TO DIRECT FELA KUTI, DRAMA WITH MUSIC ABOUT MUSICIAN AND ACTIVIST FELA KUTI, FOR FOCUS FEATURES

Posted Monday, September 16th, 2013 - Comments Off on ANDREW DOSUNMU TO DIRECT FELA KUTI, DRAMA WITH MUSIC ABOUT MUSICIAN AND ACTIVIST FELA KUTI, FOR FOCUS FEATURES
Be Sociable, Share!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NEW YORK, September 16, 2013 – Andrew Dosunmu will direct Focus Features’ drama with music Fela Kuti, which is currently in development. Focus CEO James Schamus and co-CEO Andrew Karpen made the announcement today.

A human rights activist, sexual revolutionary, and political maverick, Fela Kuti was one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century. He was the king of Afrobeat, a fusion of jazz, funk, psychedelic rock, and Yoruba chants and rhythms. Taking on Nigeria’s rapidly changing and often corrupt government in the 1970s, Fela pushed boundaries in art and life. His legacy as a charismatic visionary continues to inspire the contemporary hip-hop world and generations of artists who believe in the power of music to transform people and cultures.

Focus executive vice president, international production Teresa Moneo is supervising Fela Kuti for president of production Jeb Brody. The Cine Mosaic production is produced by Lydia Dean Pilcher and Leigh Blake.

The production’s source material is Michael Veal’s 2000 book Fela: The Life and Times of An African Musical Icon, and is not an adaptation of, or affiliated with, the Broadway musical Fela! Fela Kuti will include original music from the performer himself. Nigerian poet Chris Abani and Mr. Schamus have written the most recent drafts of the movie’s screenplay.

Mr. Dosunmu’s latest feature as director is Mother of George, starring Isaach De Bankolé and Danai Gurira; the movie world-premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival to rave reviews and was released theatrically by Oscilloscope this month. A native of Nigeria, Mr. Dosunmu began his career as a design assistant with Yves St. Laurent. He became a well-known photographer, and his film work started through a music video he made with Isaac Hayes. He has since directed music videos for artists including Youssou N’Dour, Aaron Neville, and Common. Mr. Dosunmu has also directed episodes of the hit South African television show Yizo Yizo. His documentary Hot Irons (1999) won the Reel Award at the Toronto International Film Festival and Best Documentary at FESPACO, Africa’s largest film festival. His acclaimed debut fiction feature, Restless City, world-premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and was released theatrically by Screen Media Films in 2012. Mr. Schamus and Mr. Karpen commented, “Fela Kuti lived many lifetimes in just the one, so Fela Kuti will not be a standard biopic. The combination of Andrew Dosunmu’s insight into characters and relationships with Fela’s spectacular music will enthrall audiences around the globe.”

Focus Features and Focus Features International (www.focusfeatures.com) comprise a singular global company. This worldwide studio makes original and daring films that challenge the mainstream to embrace and enjoy voices and visions from around the world that deliver global commercial success. The company operates as Focus Features in North America, and as Focus Features International (FFI) in the rest of the world.

Current and upcoming Focus Features releases include The World’s End, the new comedy reuniting director Edgar Wright with actors Simon Pegg and Nick Frost; Dallas Buyers Club, directed by Jean-Marc Vallée and starring Matthew McConaughey, Jennifer Garner, and Jared Leto; the comedy Bad Words, directed by and starring Jason Bateman; the true-life dramatic thriller Kill the Messenger, directed by Michael Cuesta and starring Jeremy Renner; the comedic fable The Boxtrolls, the new animated feature from LAIKA, directed by Anthony Stacchi and Graham Annable with a voice cast that includes Ben Kingsley, Toni Collette, Elle Fanning, Isaac Hempstead-Wright, and Tracy Morgan; Black Sea, the suspenseful adventure thriller starring Jude Law for Academy Award-wining director Kevin Macdonald; and Fifty Shades of Grey, the highly anticipated film adaptation of E L James’ #1 bestselling book that is being directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson and stars Charlie Hunnam and Dakota Johnson.

Focus Features and Focus Features International are part of NBCUniversal, one of the world’s leading media and entertainment companies in the development, production, and marketing of entertainment, news, and information to a global audience. NBCUniversal owns and operates a valuable portfolio of news and entertainment television networks, a premier motion picture company, significant television production operations, a leading television stations group, world-renowned theme parks, and a suite of leading Internet-based businesses. NBCUniversal is a subsidiary of Comcast Corporation.

 

#                                                                                  #                                                                  #

Be Sociable, Share!

Posted in Movie City News, Press Releases | Comments Off on ANDREW DOSUNMU TO DIRECT FELA KUTI, DRAMA WITH MUSIC ABOUT MUSICIAN AND ACTIVIST FELA KUTI, FOR FOCUS FEATURES

Comments are closed.

Quote Unquotesee all »

It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon