Netflix’s ‘Burning Sands’ Is A Riveting Assessment of the Perils Of Greek Life & The Vulnerability Of Black Manhood

If you exist outside of the Greek world, and certainly if you attended a predominantly white university as a student of color, Greek life swirls around you.

You may be familiar with probates and socialize with friends who are members of sororities and fraternities, but you stay along the outskirts of it all. In his feature film debut, director Gerard McMurray peels back the curtain on Black Greek life in a shocking and riveting film about brotherhood, sacrifice and the freedom of individual choice.

Burning Sands follows Zurich (Trevor Jackson), a college student at the fictional Fredrick Douglass University, trying to survive Hell Week as a Lambda Phi pledge. With his academic work, girlfriend and social life all on the back burner, Zurich attempts to press forward with the hopes of making it through Hell Night; capturing the glory that is awaiting him on the other side.

We’ve all heard whispers about the hazing that occurs when pledging various Greek organizations, but it’s mostly unspoken, remaining below ground and so ingrained in the tradition that it’s never shown the light of day unless some major trauma or tragedy strikes. As he moves through Hell Week with his fellow pledges, enduring beatings, emotional abuse and so forth, Zurich begins to question his commitment to it all. His Big Brothers are ferocious and unrelenting in their punishments. Moonlight’s Trevante Rhodes, Segun Akande, and Rotimi star as Big Brother Fernander, Malcolm, and Edwin respectively. Their physicality, as well as their near constant taunting keeps the pledges on edge.

And yet, if you watch Burning Sands (or simply try to analyze the film's trailer) focusing solely on the trauma that Zurich and his line brothers endure, you would be missing McMurray’s entire point. Shot over the course of eighteen days on the Virginia State University campus, Burning Sands tells a story about Black brotherhood and what it means to belong to something much bigger than yourself. The hazing is admittedly horrible, and I would be naive to think that there is no truth to these volatile acts. However, it is not every story; nor is it the thread that makes this film so powerful. Instead, Burning Sands is a coming of age story about legacy, bonds, and the choices that shape us forever.

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Image: Netflix 

Sundance Review: 'Tell Them We Are Rising' Underscores The Legacy & Importance Of Historically Black Colleges And Universities

To this day, education is not an inherent right. The effects of segregation are still deeply steeped in the Black community, and unless there is careful nurturing within the family home or by some particularly devoted educators, many Black people in this country have found themselves severely under and uneducated. Despite the lack of resources that are devoted to many public schools particularly in impoverished communities; Black people have always desired the opportunity to learn more about not only themselves but also the world around them. After all, is that not education’s purpose?

In his documentary feature, “Tell Them We Are Rising: The Story of Historically Black Colleges and Universities,” Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker, Stanley Nelson tells the virtually untold story of the institutions that helped to redefine what it means to be Black in America. Beginning in the days of slavery when even teaching a slave to read could cost you your life no matter the color of your skin, Nelson opens his film by outlining what historian Marybeth Gasman labels as, the “brutality of ignorance.” White supremacists and plantation owners deeply feared uprisings should enslaved people become truly aware of the circumstances in which they were forced to live. Therefore, when Emancipation did come, the desire to read and learn spread like wildfire. It was as if, “the entire race awoke.”

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Image: Firelight Films

Interview: Filmmaker Raoul Peck On His Oscar-Nominated 'I Am Not Your Negro,' Encountering James Baldwin & Confronting America

In his spellbinding and heartbreaking Academy Award nominated film, “I Am Not Your Negro,” Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck examines the story that James Baldwin never finished writing. “Remember This House” was to be a sweeping narrative exploring the lives, journeys, and deaths of three pivotal men in our history; Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr. An intricate and fascinating narrative, “I Am Not Your Negro,” gives us a view of both Baldwin and Peck’s journeys as Black men in America, encountering racism and violence.

Recently, Mr. Peck and I sat down to chat about the highly acclaimed film, the thirty pages from Baldwin’s unfinished text that sparked the idea and Peck’s own confrontation with America and Hollywood in our current political climate which as Baldwin stated, is one full of “apathy and ignorance.”

Raoul Peck: Hi Aramide

Aramide Tinubu: Hello, Mr. Peck how are you?

RP: I’m fine, thank you.

AT: Wonderful. I wanted to say first and foremost that I thought, “I Am Not Your Negro” was stunning. I saw it at the New York Film Festival last fall, and I watched it again last night. It is so riveting, especially considering the political climate that we find ourselves in.

RP: Thank you.

AT: I wanted to ask you first about how you got a hold of the notes from James Baldwin’s “Remember This House.” How were you able to get his estate to agree to hand them over, and what prompted you to do this film after receiving them?

RP: First of all, I decided a little more than ten years ago to tackle Baldwin; to go back to Baldwin. I’ve lived with Baldwin all of my life. I read him very early on as a young man, and he never left me. Baldwin is not somebody who if you read a book or two you cast him aside. He’s not that kind of writer. He’s a philosopher; he’s a poet, he’s a visionary. He has almost a scientific approach to this country, to the world and to human beings. So, he’s almost like a private philosopher that you can come back to and help understand whatever issue that you have or political question that you have. It’s all in Baldwin already. So you can read different books at different stages and come back to that thinking. So it’s very coherent. When I decided to go back, it was more or less to share that thinking with other people because I felt the time was right, and I felt that we really needed a voice like this. Because there were some victories with the Civil Right’s Movement; we have Martin Luther King Day, we have Black History Month, most people think everything is good now, we’ve solved all of the problems. We have monuments; we have museums. But, that’s not the case.

AT: Not at all.

RP: It was necessary politically to bring that back to the forefront and to bring these words in the forefront. When I went to inquire about the rights, everybody told me, “The estate will never even answer your letter, they are known to be very reluctant.” But, I just wrote a letter, and they responded within three days.

AT: Wow!

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Image: Raoul Peck

Director Ruben Santiago-Hudson & The Cast Of August Wilson’s ‘Jitney’ Talk Its Long Awaited Broadway Debut

Set in the late 1970’s in the robust and colorfully textured world that is August Wilson’s Pittsburg, “Jitney” is a profound and compelling story about a group of Black men trying to scratch out a living as unlicensed jitney drivers. Threatened by impending gentrification, personal hardships and fractured relationships, Wilson’s first play is a stunning drama about the depths and complexities of Black masculinity.

Though it was the first play he ever wrote, “Jitney” is the last of Wilson’s plays to make it to Broadway. Ahead of its debut, I got the opportunity to chat with one of Wilson’s finest interpreters, Tony Award winner and director Ruben Santiago-Hudson as well as the majority of the cast. Anthony Chisholm (Fielding), Brandon Dirden (Booster), André Holland (Youngblood), Carra Patterson (Rena), Michael Potts (Turnbo), Ray Anthony Thomas (Philmore) and John Douglas Thompson (Becker) were all in attendance.

The cast and I spoke about August Wilson’s astounding legacy, the myths of Black masculinity, the late ‘70s as a particular time and space for Black people and Black women’s roles in Wilson’s plays.

Aramide Tinubu: Ruben, you’ve done so much with August Wilson’s cannon of work. How does “Jitney” fit in with your personal story?

Ruben Santiago-Hudson: That’s my life, that’s my history, that’s my culture, that’s who I am. We came from the same place. We’re from steel towns with Northern colored people talking about what they were running from and what they were running to. So we found the celebration in who we are as Black people. As Ossie Davis would call it, “The secret gladness of being Black.” This is who I am. I don’t have to do anything but just do my work and be honest, enjoy it and just say [August’s] words, but it’s my life, we had the same life.

AT: So what has this journey been like for you to finally get “Jitney” to Broadway?

RSH: It’s the reason I worked so hard; I promised him that if I had any strength in my body, I would do everything that I could. I never promised him that I could personally do it, but in my hubris, I did say, “I’ll get it done.” Ten years into the battle I thought it would never happen because all I got was rejected. I tried everything I could. I wrote letters; I directed every play. He wrote three roles for me. I did everything in my power to get to the place as a director that was worthy of this opportunity and as a producer and as a stalwart of his work, and all I did was get rejected. Then, Manhattan Theatre Club said, “Come on, let’s dance.” So, I’m humbled proud and appreciative.

AT: What do you think it was about “Jitney” that got August to the place where he found his voice?

RSH: This play was written like in ’79, and it didn’t really get completed until after “Seven Guitars” for a big reason. He cut an hour plus out of “Seven Guitars,” and ninety percent of that is in “Jitney.”

AT: Why do you think this is the only August Wilson play that has never made it to the Broadway stage until now despite the fact that it was his first play?

Ray Anthony Thomas: You know what, I think it’s just fate more than anything. I think it just happened. I don’t think there was any conspiracy or ill will against it.

André Holland: I think it’s about damn time. I first saw the play fifteen years ago in London, and after I saw it I said, “Why has this not been seen?!” Every six months or so I write my agent and say, “Hey, what about “Jitney?” I’d write letters to the National Theatre and say, “Hey! Why don’t ya’ll bring it over here?” So, I’m just grateful especially when I see people like Anthony Chisholm and Ruben. These are legends, so I’m grateful to be a part of it.

Michael Potts: I will say I don’t know why it has taken so long. I think people might have gotten caught up in the characters or the themes in some of the other plays. Like “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” for example, lots of people have heard of her; she’s a historical figure. The character in the “The Piano Lesson” is a huge thing in ”Joe Turner’s Come and Gone.” Those are bigger much larger ideas, and this is basically a story about the fraternity of Black men together and this particular jitney station.

Brandon Dirden: It’s kind of biblical isn’t it? The first shall be last. I happened to believe that there are no accidents. I’m not smart enough to understand all of the intricacies of why it took this long to get here, but I’m just grateful to be in the room. I’m grateful to be charged with the responsibility to help tell this story. We’re not the first company to tell this story, and we won’t be the last. We’re just the first on Broadway. Maybe 2016-2017 is the optimum time for the world to receive this play and this message about reconciliation, about love, about hope and about being concerned about what is happening in our communities. I can’t think of a more right time to do this play.

AT: I concur.

BD: I don’t know why it’s taken this long, but I’m glad that we’re here.

Anthony Chisholm: You can’t write stuff better than that. “Jitney” was submitted to Lloyd Richards who was the longest running dean at Yale University. Lloyd kind of discovered August, not to say that he wasn’t going to get discovered anyway. Lloyd rejected “Jitney, ” and it was only ninety minutes long, it was only a skeleton of what was to come. But August vowed when he got the rejection that he was going to write the greatest play that was ever written and that was “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.”

John Douglas Thompson: He wrote [“Jitney”] in the late ’70s, so the time frame of the play is when he was writing it. And, somehow the other plays took root if you will as far as being produced and worked on and being brought to Broadway. They were in that kind of a pipeline where somehow “Jitney” got forgotten. But, I think if you look at what the play has done in the regions, why people have such high expectations and why it has such high anticipation, it’s that they have been rooting for it all this time. It’s this play’s time and this play’s chance to complete the cycle, but also to start the cycle all over again.

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Image: Manhattan Theatre Club

Interview: Denzel Washington, Viola Davis and Stephen Henderson On Returning To 'Fences'

Returning to their roles six years after the Tony Award-winning revival of August Wilson’s “Fences” stunned Broadway; Denzel Washington, Viola Davis, and Stephen Henderson are at long last presenting the sixth play in Wilson “Pittsburg Cycle” to film audiences.

The play, which was written in 1983 and first debuted on Broadway in 1987 is one of Wilson’s most beloved and well-known from his Twentieth Century Pittsburg Cycle. Set in the 1950’s, “Fences” follows 53-year old sanitation worker Troy Maxson and his family, who are struggling to thrive in the racially tense era. Recently, at a screening for the film in New York City that I attended, Academy Award Winner Denzel Washington who is directing and starring in the film, Academy Award Nominee Viola Davis, and Tony Award Nominee Stephen Henderson, sat down for a post-screening Q&A. They discussed their return to “Fences,” adapting it for film, and what August Wilson’s work means for us today.

Denzel, getting “Fences” to the big screen has been a very long process for you. What did you see in the play that made you realize it would make a great film? I understand that August Wilson wrote the screenplay.

Denzel Washington: In 2009, Scott Rudin sent me August’s original screenplay and asked me what I wanted to do with it. He wanted to know if I wanted to act in it, direct it or produce it. I said, “Well, let me read it first.” (Laughing) So, I read it, and I realized I hadn’t read the play, so I read the play. I had seen the play in the ‘80s, so I thought I was too young to be Troy or too old to be Cory. I was thinking about when I saw it in the ‘80s. And then, when I read the play and it said, “Troy, 53-years old” and I was 55 at the time, I said, “Oh, I better hurry up.” So, it was as simple as that. I called Scott Rudin, and I told him I wanted to do the play, so that’s how the ball got rolling. I never said, “I’ll do the play, and the next year I’ll do the film, I just wanted to do the play.”

When you talk about adapting a play into a film, there is a lot of discussion about opening up the world. For all of you, because you were all in the play, let’s talk about recontextualizing some of the scenes because we are able to move away from the yard in the film.

DW: Well, let me just say before they speak, I never thought about opening it up, I don’t even know what that means, I just thought about where else would it make sense for this scene to take place. I thought, “Why can’t Rose walk in the kitchen?” So we used the front yard, the backyard, the kitchen, we used the front room; we used the porch, we used the front street and upstairs and other places, the back of the [garbage truck], the sanitation yard, the insane asylum, the bar, and that worked well.

Stephen Henderson: It all fit, it really did. Pittsburg fit. Spiritually speaking we knew that we were on streets that August had walked and that he had mused on back when he was just writing. Because he wrote, he wrote before anybody was doing it. So to be in touch with that and to have his family there, it was really rich. The community we were in, they so welcomed us.

Viola Davis: They were so protective of the work.

DW: We had a guy, a gentlemen by the name of Mr. Greenleaf who lived behind the house we were shooting in, and he was like a part of the movie. (Laughing) He would come downstairs, and he couldn’t hear well to say, “Ya’ll want some coffee?”

How did you calibrate this world as a director?

DW: We had depth, and we wanted to take advantage of that cinematically. When you look in one direction where Troy’s chair was, you could see out through the yard across the street, there was an old cork bar advertisement for five cents. We wanted it to feel like this was real life and that it extended blocks and blocks.

Viola, can you talk about working with Denzel both as an actor and then having him as a director?

VD: Well, Denzel just knows the actor. He knows the process, and you don’t often get that. Sometimes people come in as a director, and they just want the result, and they barely want that to tell you the truth. Sometimes directors barely talk to the actors; they are so focused on the cinematic elements of the movie, getting the shot and getting the lighting right or getting the CGI effects right and all of that, and they just trust that you are just going to do what you do. Obviously, [“Fences”] is not a piece you can do that with. It is a character-driven piece in every sense of the word, and Denzel knows the actor. He gave us two weeks of rehearsal. He is a truth teller, and he is a truth seer. So he knows when something is not going in the right direction, and he will call you on it. But, he knows the word to use to unlock whatever is blocking you. So I think he’s fabulous and he’s a teacher.

DW: Keep going girl!

VD: (Laughing) When Denzel first called me on the phone after we’d just done a reading of the film. He said, “Oh Viola it was so good, wasn’t it?! I’m gonna tell Russell [Hornsby] to lose a little bit of weight and…” I was just sitting there thinking, why is he calling me? And I told him, “Denzel don’t you tell me to lose weight!” He said, “I’m not telling you to lose weight! I can’t believe you would say that.” He was rustling with something and when he came back it was with a word about loving myself and the body that I’m in because I was still going on and on about the weight thing. I just liked that, because what people don’t understand is that so much of what blocks us as actors is so personal. So it just great. Lloyd Richards is another director who was like that, who was a teacher. When a director can give you a word that allows you to feel less tense about yourself, to make you feel like you indeed are good enough before you even get to the work, you can’t ask for anything more than that.

Since all three of you worked together on the stage play, what was it like bringing in the new cast members for the film?

SH: It was very very easy to open up to them. Both of the new people were so respectful of the work and glad to be there. Nothing was taken for granted, coming into the film.

DW: Just so you know the new people are Jovan [Adepo] who played Cory and the little girl.

SH: Saniyyah [Sidney] and Jovan, they both came, and they were so respectful towards the work. Once of the things Mykelti Williamson, Russell Hornsby and I did is we took Jovan out to Greenwood where August is buried. I’d been there a few times, and we took him out to his headstone, and I remembered this tree, and that’s all I remembered. I saw a tree and it was a wrong tree, but Jovan saw this other tree and ran up, and he got there first. For me, it was really a sign. There was so much about this whole experience that proved that the people who were brought to it, were brought to it by forces. I mean they were brought to it by Denzel, but Denzel is such an instinctive kind of person. He’s an instinctive artist and instinctive in terms of his feelings about people. So, it was very easy and Saniyyah, well forget about it. She’s an old soul; she’s been here before.

Speaking about Saniyyah, what was it like finding her in the casting process because she is such a crucial character?

DW: She just had “it.” I didn’t want to audition the kids so much; I just wanted to talk to them because I like seeing how they are because their mothers usually mess them up with practice. So, I’d rather talk to them and see how they respond. I just throw things at them and see how they can hit the ball back, and she was good. I even asked her why she wanted to be an actor and she said, “I’m serious about this. These other little kids they want to play, and I don’t have time for that.” She was very serious about her work and her craft, and she wanted to be good, and she wanted to work on it. So I said, “Ok.” It was as simple as that. She was just right. She just has it.

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Image: Fences/Paramount 

John Singleton Talks ‘Boyz N the Hood’ 25 Years Later, The State of Black Cinema and Tupac Shakur

On July 12, 1991, John Singleton’s “Boyz N the Hood” came roaring into theaters. The Black community was feeling the residual effects of the ‘80s crack epidemic. George H.W. Bush was in the White House, and the Los Angeles community was still reeling from the brutal beating of Rodney King by the LAPD four months prior.

Just twenty-three years old at the time of the film’s debut, John Singleton became the youngest and first Black director to be nominated for an Academy Award. The feature film debut of both Ice Cube and Morris Chestnut, “Boyz N the Hood” helped spawn an entire new genre of Black film including, Mario Van Peebles, “New Jack City”, Ernest Dickerson’s “Juice” and the Hughes Brothers “Menace II Society”. With continued attacks on our community, and in the midst of the Black Lives Matters Movement, films like “Boyz” remain exceedingly poignant. They give a voice not just to young Black men living in impoverished and crime riddled areas, but also to the community as a whole. As we continue to feel the immense devastation and trauma that stems from four hundred plus years of inequality, terror and unjust treatment these films remain painfully relatable. To commemorate the its 25th anniversary, I attended a special screening of “Boyz N the Hood” with John Singleton in NYC last month. After the credits rolled, he sat and chatted about making the film, the state of Black cinema, #BlackLivesMatter, and his friendship with the late and great Tupac Shakur.

“Boyz N the Hood” 25 Years Later

I look at the film as sort of a time capsule of what I was thinking and what I was feeling at the time. I wrote the script when I was twenty-years-old. I’d gone to see “Do The Right Thing” when it came out in the summer of ’89. I was so enamored with Spike [Lee]. Spike has always been like my big brother, and I met him two weeks before I started USC film school, when he came out with “She’s Gotta Have It”. I saw him in LA and he shook my hand. I told him, “I’m going to USC in two weeks, watch out for me.” So, I went to school for four years reppin’ Black cinema. I was one of the only Black filmmakers and Black students in a predominantly white film culture. Most people going to school back then, they knew people in the business. It was this continued marginalization. People were telling me, “There is only going to be one Spike Lee.” I told them, “I’m going to be the next John Singleton, I’m not going to be the next Spike Lee”. So my thing was, I’m going to get out of school and I’m going to be the first round draft pick just like in the NBA, but in film. My whole four years of school was trying to figure out how I was going to do that. Coming out of the theater after seeing “Do The Right Thing”, something clicked for me. It was about writing about you know. At a certain age, you only have a certain amount of life experience. I only knew about what I saw, and what I knew about growing up in the hood. So I said, “OK, I’m gonna go and hang out with my folks for a little while back down on Vermont and I’m going to figure out this story.” That’s where this came from. It was me trying to really make an identity for myself as a filmmaker reppin’ Los Angeles, or a certain part of LA as an identity. That’s how I came up with “Boyz N the Hood.”

On Making “Boyz N the Hood”

I can’t really say that it was a hard movie to make because I was coming out of school, and even though I didn’t know anything about making movies, I knew film theory. I’d watched a lot of films. I had my own ideology about what would make a good film, but I didn’t know how to make a movie, so I just acted like a director. When the dailies started coming out I thought, “Whoa, I guess I’m giving a good performance.” To make that type of film, you have to be very immersed in whatever culture you are trying to present. I like films that speak to a specific time and place. You can be from a certain culture and not know anything about where you’re from. That’s why a lot of Black filmmakers are making marginal films right now, because they’re not really astute as to what came before them. Like if you make a gumbo and the rue is bad, it ain’t gonna taste good. Even if everybody else is telling you, “This is nothing”, you have to believe that the story that you are telling is valid. It has to be valid to you and that’s what’s really important. It doesn’t matter if a few people see it, or a whole lot of people see it, it has to be valid to you first, before anyone has to believe that it’s something. The script for “Boyz N the Hood” got written because I was at USC, which is still adjacent to the neighborhood that I grew up in. I was having, I don’t want to say post-traumatic stress because I’m still in that environment, but I was having dreams about the stuff that I had seen during my childhood and my teenage years. But, I was on an island, because USC when you step off the campus, you’re in the mix and this was in the ‘80s still. So that’s where “Boyz” came from.

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Image: Columbia Pictures