MOVIE PREVIEW
“The Retrieval”
Landmark Theatres Midtown Art Cinema, 931 Monroe Drive N.E., Atlanta. www.landmarktheatres.com/market/atlanta/midtownartcinema.htm.
Currently scheduled to run through March 20.
Cast appearances: 4:15, 7:15 and 9:30 p.m. Saturday; 4:15 and 7:15 p.m. Sunday.
Let’s start with what “The Retrieval” is not.
The award-winning independent film is not “Django Unchained” part II, nor is it “12 Years a Slave” — the sequel.
Not that there’s anything wrong with those films, both of which can boast Oscars.
What the Civil War-era film is, however, is a powerfully written drama that focuses on the complex relationship that develops as a 13-year-old boy, Will, played by newcomer Ashton Sanders, is sent by white bounty hunters to trick a wanted freedman, Nate, back to the South. Will faces a difficult decision he must make as the relationship grows between the two.
The film, written and directed by Chris Eska, made its Atlanta premiere Friday at Landmark Theatres Midtown Art Cinema, 931 Monroe Drive N.E., with question-and-answer sessions to follow most showings through Sunday. Currently, it is scheduled to run through March 20, with the possibility of an extension.
“I’m not worried about (audience) fatigue,” he said. “This is not about slavery. Not one of the main characters is enslaved.”
The film is part coming-of-age, part Western, part family drama, Eska said. It also touches on the importance of surrogate families, the need to make human connections and “hopefully it will encourage the audience to re-evaluate our paths in life.”
Atlanta is an important stop for the film and its cast, as the start of the film’s commercial theatrical release. “The Retrieval” has won numerous awards at film festivals around the world, most notably at the SXSW Film Festival in Austin, Texas, where actor Tishuan Scott, a Morehouse College graduate, won an acting award as Nate, a freedman gravedigger for the Union Army.
“There’s a lot riding on this weekend,” Eska said. “We need to demonstrate there is an audience for this movie. … Other cities will look at this weekend to see if they want to book this film.”
There’s no big studio budget to promote the film, which is set in 1864 and was shot in Eska’s native Texas over 30 days.
The budget to make “The Retrieval” was “so incredibly small, but it was a labor of love and everyone came together,” he said.
Atlanta is also significant for another reason.
The film brought together three strangers with strong ties to the metro area.
Nate is played by Scott, an Oprah Scholar who graduated in 2002 with a degree in drama with a minor in psychology from Morehouse. Scott, 34, a native of Louisiana, said he prepared for the role by reading works such as “The Confessions of Nat Turner” and W.E.B. DuBois’ “Souls of Black Folk” and studying images of African-American men during that time.
He used an acting technique in which he thought of Nate as an animal — an alligator, which he described as stoic, steely and striking only when necessary.
His hope is that viewers will “discover their own personal humanity. … This is not to upset us or to anger us, but to uplift us. … It should reawaken us and give us a sense of rebirth.”
The character of Nate was originally written as someone in his 60s. Eska hoped to enlist the talents of Danny Glover or Clarke Peters of “The Wire” and “Treme” fame. But with Scott’s performance, “I’m so glad that we didn’t receive a ‘yes’ from a star,” Eska said.
It also stars Christine Horn, a Smyrna resident, a founding member of the Freddie Hendricks Youth Ensemble of Atlanta and a 1995 graduate of Tri-Cities High School.
“It was transformative, taking a journey back in time to the 1800s, and the story is just so beautiful,” said Horn, who plays Rachel, the lost love of Nate. “I was honored to be part of this story of what happened post-Emancipation Proclamation.”
And one of the executive producers is Sibyl Avery Jackson, who graduated from Spelman College in 1979 and is the wife of former Atlanta Falcons wide receiver Alfred Jackson.
“He (Scott) and I always talk about the Spelman-Morehouse connection and what it means,” said Jackson, an author and screenwriter. “We naturally formed a bond.”
About the Author
