NIA DACOSTA

CANDYMAN (2021)
Starring Lakeith Stanfield, Yahya Abdul-Mateen Ii, Teyonah Parris, Tony Todd, Cassie Kramer, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Colman Domingo, Rebecca Spence, Kyle Kaminsky and Carl Clemons-Hopkins. Directed by Nia Dacosta.

For as long as residents can remember, the housing projects of Chicago’s Cabrini Green neighborhood were terrorised by a word-of-mouth ghost story about a supernatural killer with a hook for a hand, easily summoned by those daring to repeat his name five times into a mirror. In present day, a decade after the last of the Cabrini towers were torn down, visual artist Anthony McCoy and his girlfriend, gallery director Brianna Cartwright, move into a luxury loft condo in Cabrini, now gentrified beyond recognition and inhabited by upwardly mobile millennials.

With Anthony’s painting career on the brink of stalling, a chance encounter with a Cabrini Green old-timer exposes Anthony to the tragically horrific nature of the true story behind Candyman. Anxious to maintain his status in the Chicago art world, Anthony begins to explore these macabre details in his studio as fresh grist for paintings, unknowingly opening a door to a complex past that unravels his own sanity and unleashes a terrifyingly viral wave of violence that puts him on a collision course with destiny.

REVIEWS Candyman - Sweet, sugar, Candyman

LITTLE WOODS (2019)
Starring Tessa Thompson, Lily James, Luke Kirby, James Badge Dale, Lance Reddick, Elizabeth Maxwell, Morgana Shaw, Jeremy St. James, Charlie Ray Reid and Elizabeth Jackson. Directed by Nia Dacosta.

Ollie is barely getting by in Little Woods, an economically depressed fracking boomtown in North Dakota. She has left her days of illegally running prescription pills over the Canadian border behind, eyeing a potential new job that would finally break her out of the small town. But when her mother dies, she is reunited with her estranged sister Deb, who faces a mounting crisis: the combined effect of an unplanned pregnancy and a deadbeat ex. The two find they have one week to settle the mortgage on their mother’s house or face foreclosure. As both bills and pressure mount, Ollie faces a choice: whether to return to a way of life she thought she’d left behind for just one more score, or to leave it all behind.

REVIEWS Little Woods - Trekking to society's outskirts

LITTLE WOODS (2019)
Starring Tessa Thompson, Lily James, Luke Kirby, James Badge Dale, Lance Reddick, Elizabeth Maxwell, Morgana Shaw, Jeremy St. James, Charlie Ray Reid and Elizabeth Jackson. Directed by Nia Dacosta.

Ollie is barely getting by in Little Woods, an economically depressed fracking boomtown in North Dakota. She has left her days of illegally running prescription pills over the Canadian border behind, eyeing a potential new job that would finally break her out of the small town. But when her mother dies, she is reunited with her estranged sister Deb, who faces a mounting crisis: the combined effect of an unplanned pregnancy and a deadbeat ex. The two find they have one week to settle the mortgage on their mother’s house or face foreclosure. As both bills and pressure mount, Ollie faces a choice: whether to return to a way of life she thought she’d left behind for just one more score, or to leave it all behind.

REVIEWS Little Woods - Trekking to society's outskirts