A Thousand and One (2023)
Director: A.V. Rockwell Run Time: 116 min. Release Year: 2023
Starring: Aaron Kingsley Adetola, Aven Courtney, Josiah Cross, Teyana Taylor, William Catlett
Country: United States
Language: English
About the film:
U.S. Dramatic Grand Jury Prize winner, 2023 Sundance Film Festival
Follows unapologetic and free-spirited Inez (Teyana Taylor), who kidnaps her six-year-old son Terry from the foster care system. Holding onto their secret and each other, mother and son set out to reclaim their sense of home, identity, and stability, in a rapidly changing New York City.
“a breathtakingly beautiful portrait of Black womanhood”
The film went on to receive two nominations at the 2024 Independent Spirit Awards – Best First Feature and Best Lead Performance (Teyana Taylor).
About the filmmaker:
A.V. Rockwell is an award-winning screenwriter and director. Named as one of Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film,” her distinctive voice has been celebrated for slyly addressing issues of race, identity, and systemic oppression. Her debut feature film, A Thousand and One (2023), premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival where it won the U.S. Dramatic Grand Jury Prize. Her other projects include the Clio award-winning short film The Gospel (2016) for Alicia Keys, Bumble’s Super Bowl LIII spot featuring Serena Williams, and the short film Feathers, which premiered at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival. Rockwell studied filmmaking at NYU Tisch School of the Arts and has received fellowships from Tribeca Film Institute, the Sundance Institute and the John S. Guggenheim Foundation. She is an alumni of the Sundance Screenwriters and Directors Labs.