" PARIAH " A Dee Rees Film About the Filmmakers DEE REES (Writer/Director) is an alumna of New York University’s graduate film program and a 2008 Sundance Screenwriting & Directing Lab Fellow. She has written and directed several short films, including Orange Bow (centering on a teenage boy) and Pariah. The latter, completed in 2007, screened at over 40 festivals worldwide (including Sundance) and garnered 25 Best Short awards. Additionally, Pariah was a finalist for the 2009 Sundance/NHK International Award. Ms. Rees was also selected as a 2008 Tribeca Institute/Renew Media Arts Fellow for her work; was chosen as one of Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film” for 2008; and was nominated for a USA Fellowship in 2009. Pariah has now been expanded into Pariah, which world-premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and was honored with the Festival’s [U.S. Dramatic Competition] Excellence in Cinematography Award (Bradford Young). The Nashville native’s most recent short film, Colonial Gods, aired on the BBC in the fall of 2009. The short chronicles a complicated friendship between a Somali man and a Nigerian man, set against the backdrop of gentrification in the small immigrant community in Cardiff, Wales known as Tiger Bay. Also prior to making Pariah, Ms. Rees directed a documentary feature, Eventual Salvation. The film, which she also edited, received a 2007 Sundance Documentary Fund Grant and premiered on the Sundance Channel in October 2009. It follows her grandmother’s return to Liberia on to help rebuild a community following the country’s civil war. She previously worked as a script supervision intern on Spike Lee’s epic documentary When the Levees Broke and feature Inside Man; and earned a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from Florida A&M University.
Director Dee Rees on the set of PARIAH, a Focus Features release. Photo: Jenny Baptiste. BRADFORD YOUNG (Cinematography) graduated from Howard University, where he studied under the tutelage of filmmaker Haile Gerima. For filmmaker Dee Rees, he has been cinematographer on the short films Pariah and Colonial Gods; the documentary feature Eventual Salvation; and the feature Pariah. Mr. Young’s work on the latter earned him the 2011 Sundance Film Festival’s [U.S. Dramatic Competition] Excellence in Cinematography Award. He had earlier been cited as one of Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film” for 2009, reflecting his work on Tina Mabry’s Mississippi Damned and Gloria La Morte and Paola Mendoza’s Entre nos. Mr. Young was recently cinematographer on another independent feature, Andrew Dosunmu’s Restless City, and he is currently prepping to shoot Sebastian Silva’s Second Child. He has also been the director of photography on television commercials and music videos, including for Seu Jorge. SPIKE LEE (Executive Producer) is an award-winning producer, writer, director, and actor with over three decades of experience in the film industry. Mr. Lee’s highly acclaimed work often takes a critical look at race relations, political issues, and urban crime and violence. His debut feature She’s Gotta Have It was a huge critical success; his next film, Do the Right Thing, examined all of the above concerns and earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay. His subsequent films, including Malcolm X, Mo’ Better Blues, Summer of Sam, and She Hate Me continued to encourage social and political dialogues. 4 Little Girls, about the 1963 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Feature Documentary. In 2006, Mr. Lee directed and produced a four-hour documentary for television, When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts, about life in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. That same year, he found boxoffice success with the crime caper Inside Man, starring Denzel Washington and Clive Owen. His most recent narrative feature, Miracle at St. Anna, told the story of four African-American soldiers trapped in an Italian village during World War II, bringing the often overlooked experiences of black infantrymen – known as buffalo soldiers – to the big screen. His production company, 40 Acres & A Mule Filmworks, is located in his childhood neighborhood of Fort Greene in Brooklyn, NYC. © 2010, Pariah Feature LLC
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ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS -
SYNOPSIS & MUSIC -