Debbie Tucker Green’s “Ear for Eye,” starring Lashana Lynch (“No Time to Die”), will receive a multi-platform launch, premiering at the 65th BFI London Film Festival and on the BBC.
The film will world premiere at the festival on Oct. 16 and will bow the same evening on BBC Two and streamer BBC iPlayer. It is produced by Fiona Lamptey, who is also director of U.K. features at Netflix.
The cast also includes Tosin Cole (“The Souvenir”), Carmen Munroe (“Desmond’s”), Danny Sapani (“MotherFatherSon”), Nadine Marshall (“Sitting In Limbo”) and Arinzé Kene (“I’m Your Woman”).
Tucker Green has adapted her acclaimed 2018 Royal Court stage production for the screen, with backing from BBC Film, BBC Two and the BFI. It is the second feature film from the BAFTA and Olivier Award-winning writer and director after “Second Coming” (2014).
The film explores demonstrations vs direct action, violence vs non-violence, the personal vs structural across Black families, friends, students and older generations in contemporary British and American society and features a soundtrack from artists including Run the Jewels, FKA twigs and Kano.
Tucker Green said: “’Ear for Eye has been re-written for film bringing intimate portraits of characters to screen cinematically in a way that only film can. With original music composed by Luke Sutherland and tracks by Sons of Kemet, Run the Jewels, Little Simz, Kano and FKA twigs the film inter-twines beats, dialogue, visuals and music shifting through time and place.”
Tucker Green is expected to attend the world premiere along with key cast members.
“Debbie’s first feature ‘Second Coming’ screened in our first feature competition in 2014, and it is such a privilege to have her back to world premiere ‘Ear for Eye,’ and also to present the premiere in this way with the BBC,” festival director Tricia Tuttle said. “Debbie’s writing is so powerful – lyrical, complex, urgent- and this adaptation of her own work is a wonderful blend of theatre, performance and film, brought to life by a truly talented cast.”
The festival opens Oct. 6 with Jeymes Samuel’s “The Harder They Fall,” starring Idris Elba, Jonathan Majors, Zazie Beetz, Delroy Lindo and LaKeith Stanfield and closes Oct. 17 with Joel Coen’s “The Tragedy of Macbeth,” featuring Denzel Washington, Frances McDormand, Brendan Gleeson, Harry Melling and Ralph Ineson.
