The Film Version of Isabel Wilkerson’s “Caste” Makes History

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Not once in the history of the Venice International Film Festival—one of the oldest and most prestigious in the world—has a Black American woman been honored for her directorial work. All that changed on September 6, when Ava DuVernay, the award-winning director of Selma and 13^th, premiered her latest film at the festival’s 80th annual competition. The movie, titled Origin, is inspired by Isabel Wilkerson’s book Caste, Oprah’s April 2020 Book Club selection. When the curtain fell, the crowd rose—and remained standing, according to Hollywood Reporter, for a remarkable nine-minute cheering ovation.

“For Black filmmakers, we’re told that people who love films in other parts of the world don’t care about our stories and don’t care about our films,” DuVernay explained at a press conference. “This is something that we are often told—‘You cannot play international film festivals, no one will come, people will not come to the press conferences, people won't come to the P&I screenings, they will not be interested in selling tickets, you may not even get into this festival, don’t apply.’ I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been told, ‘Don’t apply to Venice; you won’t get in. It won’t happen.”

In Caste, Isabel Wilkerson, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Warmth of Other Suns created a deeply researched, evocative historical account of America’s entrenched racial hierarchy system. “Of all the books I’ve chosen for Book Club over the decades, there isn’t another that is more essential a read than this one,” Oprah said of her 86th 2020 Book Club selection.

Rather than trying to capture the full historical breadth of Wilkerson’s 400-plus-page reckoning, DuVernay focused instead on Wilkerson, dramatizing her process of researching and writing this cultural touchstone while facing a series of harrowing personal tragedies, including the loss of her husband.

Wilkerson is played by Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, who played the showstopping mother of Venus and Serena Williams in King Richard and the thorny Mrs. Hunt in If Beale Street Could Talk. Wilkerson’s husband is played by Jon Bernthal, whom viewers may remember for his appearances as Carmen Berzatto’s (Jeremy Allen White) troubled older brother on The Bear.

The first teaser for the film appeared on Instagram. The film will hit American theaters by the end of the year, but an exact release date has yet to be announced.

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