AMERICAN FICTION Special Screenings

Screening to be followed by a conversation with director Cord Jefferson, moderated by Robert Townsend.

Acclaimed television writer Cord Jefferson (SUCCESSION, WATCHMEN) makes a triumphant leap to the big screen with his directorial debut, a whip-smart, wickedly funny and stealthily thought-provoking satire which won the People’s Choice Award at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival. Frustrated author Thelonious “Monk” Ellison (an outstanding Jeffery Wright) is tired of being told his work doesn’t fit into the perceived cannon of “Black” literature. Where are the stereotypical stories of Black pain and misery that seem to sell so well to white liberal audiences? When fellow writer Sintara Golden (Issa Rae) publishes an instant bestseller entitled “We’s Lives In Da Ghetto,” an outraged Monk concocts a scheme to expose the hypocrisy of the literary world by writing a pseudonymous novel encompassing every tired trope about the Black experience he can think of. But when the book becomes a hit – and Monk’s pseudonym a rising literary star – he is forced to re-examine everything he thought he believed about artistic integrity. Adapted from Percival Everett’s 2001 novel “Erasure” and featuring a stellar supporting cast including Tracee Ellis Ross, Sterling K. Brown, Leslie Uggams, Erika Alexander, Myra Lucretia Taylor, John Ortiz and Adam Brody, AMERICAN FICTION is a timely, nimble and irreverent look at art as commodity and the myths we tell ourselves about race, identity and representation in modern America. –Abbie Algar