Derby has signed writer/director Emily Elizabeth Thomas for advertising, branded content and music videos. Thomas is best known for her narrative work, including the award-winning short film Lola: Girl Got a Gun.
The Derby deal marks Thomas’ first foray into advertising and she’s off to a fast start. Thomas has already collaborated with Derby on a pair of projects, the latest, a provocative short film, out of TBWAChiatDay NY, for this month’s Brooklyn Film Festival.
Derby executive producer Rebecca Niles said that she was immediately struck by Thomas’ storytelling skill and her polish as a filmmaker. “Emily’s films have a rawness and passion that is truly distinctive,” Niles assessed. “There’s a need for a director like Emily, who comes from an art, narrative background, in advertising. She will come into the space and disrupt it. I see obvious application for her striking aesthetic across a range of ad genres, especially those focused on women”
Thomas grew up in Austin, Texas and studied filmmaking at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and New York University. Her debut film, Lola: Girl Got a Gun premiered last year and screened at Cannes Short Corner, the Harlem International Film Festival, the Marfa Film Festival, and other fests. The narrative film takes on the prevalence of gun violence in the American South, through the eyes of a young cowgirl. It won the Crossroads Award for Directors on the Rise at the Victoria Texas Independent Film Festival, Best International Short at the Oslo Independent Film Festival, and Best Professional Short at the George Lindsay Alabama Film Festival.
Thomas said she feels simpatico with Niles, “Together, we’re ready for anything,” explained Thomas. “I’ve written and directed all of my narrative films. I’ve gotten down and dirty and weathered every storm. I’m well-prepared to enter the advertising field.”
Thomas’ first project for Derby was “Long Time Coming,” the debut music video from Atlantic Records artist Jagwar Twin. She followed that with The Gathering, a short promotional film for the Brooklyn Film Festival. Conceived by TBWAChiatDay NY, the piece is inspired by real accounts of alleged sexual misconduct in the film industry. The film will play in advance of every festival screening. “It’s important to me to be a part of the conversation of gender equality in the film industry, and the fight to end sexual misconduct in Hollywood. The dialogue in this film will touch trigger points for a lot of people,” Thomas insisted. “The industry has a history of failing women. This film is meant to encourage people to take a stand against mistreatment and bias. It was an honor to be part of it.”
“Working with the creative team from TBWA was fantastic,” Thomas added. “We were all very happy with the mood we were able to create, and the story we were able to tell.”
Review: Malcolm Washington Makes His Feature Directing Debut With “The Piano Lesson”
An heirloom piano takes on immense significance for one family in 1936 Pittsburgh in August Wilson's "The Piano Lesson." Generational ties also permeate the film adaptation, in which Malcolm Washington follows in his father Denzel Washington's footsteps in helping to bring the entirety of The Pittsburgh Cycle — a series of 10 plays — to the screen.
Malcolm Washington did not start from scratch in his accomplished feature filmmaking debut. He enlisted much of the cast from the recent Broadway revival with Samuel L. Jackson (Doaker Charles), his brother, John David Washington (Boy Willie), Ray Fisher (Lymon) and Michael Potts (Whining Boy). Berniece, played by Danielle Brooks in the play, is now beautifully portrayed by Danielle Deadwyler. With such rich material and a cast for whom it's second nature, it would be hard, one imagines, to go wrong. Jackson's own history with the play goes back to its original run in 1987 when he was Boy Willie.
It's not the simplest thing to make a play feel cinematic, but Malcolm Washington was up to the task. His film opens up the world of the Charles family beyond the living room. In fact, this adaptation, which Washington co-wrote with "Mudbound" screenwriter Virgil Williams, goes beyond Wilson's text and shows us the past and the origins of the intricately engraved piano that's central to all the fuss. It even opens on a big, action-filled set piece in 1911, during which the piano is stolen from a white family's home. Another fleshes out Doaker's monologue in which he explains to the uninitiated, Fisher's Lymon, and the audience, the tortured history of the thing. While it might have been nice to keep the camera on Jackson, such a great, grounding presence throughout, the good news is that he really makes... Read More