HOW A.V. ROCKWELL'S A THOUSAND AND ONE PAYS HOMAGE TO A FORGOTTEN NYC AND ITS MOST VULNERABLE CITIZENS

In her feature debut A Thousand and One, writer-director A.V. Rockwell turns her lens on Inez (Teyana Taylor), a young woman recently released from prison who is determined to reconnect with her 6-year-old son Terry (Aaron Kingsley Adetola). A product of the foster care system, Inez desperately wants more for her child, but in a city that moves at a dizzying pace, she has no one to rely on but herself. In a moment of recklessness, she kidnaps Terry from his group home, leaving the streets of Brooklyn for Harlem just as a newly elected Rudy Giuliani steps into the city’s highest office. As much as A Thousand and One is about a mother and a son, it’s also about a version of New York City that no longer exists and the citizens who got lost in the shuffle.

The film debuted at Sundance in January to rave reviews, going on to win the grand jury prize at the festival and earn a Certified Fresh 98% Tomatometer score from critics. Ahead of its release in theaters on March 31, we spoke with Rockwell about how she recreated 1990s New York City and why she chose to tackle subjects like gentrification, colorism, and the foster care system.

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10 BLACK WOMEN FILMMAKERS WHO HAVE SHAPED THE CINEMA LANDSCAPE OF THE 21ST CENTURY

From historical dramas to romantic films that display Black love, Black women directors have offered varied narratives to the cinema landscape in the past two decades. These countless contributions center the Black female experience, offering moviegoers a unique perspective into Black womanhood while providing Black women and girls the rare opportunity to see themselves spotlighted on-screen.

Gina-Prince Bythewood ushered in the 21st century with her classic romantic drama Love & Basketball and more recently delivered the commanding and powerful historical drama The Woman King. Meanwhile, Dawn Porter has delivered rousing examinations of conservative attacks on women’s health care and a retrospective on the late Civil Rights activist John Lewis.

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10 BLACK WOMEN FILMMAKERS WHO SHAPED THE CINEMA LANDSCAPE OF THE 20TH CENTURY

As representation has expanded for Black women in Hollywood, both in front of and behind the camera, it might appear to some that Black women only recently began contributing to the cinema landscape. As we praise prolific directors like Ava DuVernay, Kasi Lemmons, and Gina Prince-Bythewood for their stunning films, which offer varied views of Black womanhood, it might seem as though there was a scarcity of Black women directors who preceded them. However, that couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Oscar Micheaux is noted as the most prolific Black American filmmaker of the first half of the 20th century. The 1980s and 1990s paved the way for a new generation of Black male filmmakers like Spike Lee, John Singleton, and countless others, gaining the recognition they deserved for their gritty and telling depictions of Black manhood in the inner city. As a result, the contributions of Black women before and during this period have nearly been erased.

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