The Obituary of Tunde Johnson

Last updated
The Obituary of Tunde Johnson
TheObituaryOfTundeJohnson KeyArt 15 final.png
Film poster
Directed by Ali LeRoi
Written byStanley Kalu
Produced by
  • Zachary Green
  • Jason Shuman
  • Chuck Bond
  • Marni Bond
Starring
Distributed byWolfe Releasing
Release date
  • September 8, 2019 (2019-09-08)(TIFF)

The Obituary of Tunde Johnson is a 2019 American drama film, directed by Ali LeRoi. [1]

Contents

Premise

Tunde Johnson is a gay Nigerian-American teenager who is in a secret relationship with his school's white lacrosse champion Soren. Soren is closeted and officially dating popular girl Marley, Tunde's best friend since childhood. The day of Soren's birthday, when the two boys have planned to come out to their families, Tunde is stopped and fatally shot by a police officer. Following his death, he wakes up the previous morning and becomes trapped in a time loop, forced to relive the day of his murder, which keeps happening in different ways no matter how hard he tries to change it. [2]

Cast

Production

The screenplay was written by Stanley Kalu, a film student at the University of Southern California. [3] It was the first-ever winner of The Launch, a screenwriting competition to find and develop screenplays by promising new writers on which LeRoi was a judge; [3] the competition's prize included the screenplay being produced as a feature film, and LeRoi signed on to direct it as his own feature film debut. [4]

Release

The film premiered at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival. [1]

Reception

Accolades

YearAwardCategoryRecipient(s)ResultRef.
2022 GLAAD Media Awards GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Film – Limited Release The Obituary of Tunde JohnsonNominated [5]

See also

Related Research Articles

<i>Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back</i> 2001 American film directed by Kevin Smith

Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back is a 2001 American satirical stoner buddy comedy film written, co-edited, and directed by Kevin Smith and produced and co-edited by Scott Mosier. The film is the fifth set in the View Askewniverse, a growing collection of characters and settings that developed out of Smith's cult-favorite Clerks. It stars Jason Mewes and Smith respectively as the two eponymous characters. The film also stars Shannon Elizabeth, Jason Lee, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Will Ferrell, Eliza Dushku, Ali Larter, and Chris Rock, among many others, most of which in cameo appearances. The title and logo for Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back are direct references to The Empire Strikes Back.

William Condon is an American director and screenwriter. Condon is known for writing and/or directing numerous successful and acclaimed films including Gods and Monsters, Chicago, Kinsey, Dreamgirls, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2, and Beauty and the Beast. He has received two nominations for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, Gods and Monsters and Chicago, winning for the former.

<i>The Celluloid Closet</i> (film) 1995 American documentary film

The Celluloid Closet is a 1996 American documentary film directed and co-written by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, and executive produced by Howard Rosenman. The film is based on Vito Russo's 1981 book The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies, and on lecture and film clip presentations he gave from 1972 to 1982. Russo had researched the history of how motion pictures, especially Hollywood films, had portrayed gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender characters.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wentworth Miller</span> British-born American actor and screenwriter

Wentworth Earl Miller III is a British-born American actor and screenwriter. He rose to prominence following his starring role as Michael Scofield in the Fox series Prison Break, for which he received a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Television Series Drama in 2005. He made his screenwriting debut with the 2013 thriller film Stoker. In 2014, he began playing Leonard Snart / Captain Cold in a recurring role on The CW series The Flash before becoming a series regular on the spin-off, Legends of Tomorrow.

Ali LeRoi is an American television producer, director, writer and actor. He is best known as the co-creator of the Chris Rock semi-autobiographical sitcom Everybody Hates Chris, for which he won the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Writing in a Comedy Series in 2008.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pat Mills (director)</span> Canadian film director, screenwriter and actor

Kevin Patrick Mills is a Canadian film director, screenwriter and actor, whose feature film debut Guidance was released in 2015.

<i>The Loud House</i> American animated television series

The Loud House is an American animated television series created by Chris Savino that premiered on Nickelodeon on May 2, 2016. The series revolves around the chaotic everyday life of a boy named Lincoln Loud, who is the middle child and only son in a large family of 11 children. It is set in a fictional town in southeastern Michigan called Royal Woods, based on Savino's hometown of Royal Oak. The series was pitched to the network in 2013 as a two-minute short film entered in the annual Animated Shorts Program. It entered production the following year. The series is based on Savino's own childhood growing up in a large family, and its animation is largely influenced by newspaper comic strips.

<i>Closet Monster</i> (film) 2015 Canadian film

Closet Monster is a 2015 Canadian drama film written and directed by Stephen Dunn. It stars Connor Jessup as a closeted gay teenager, using elements of the body horror genre as a metaphor for internalized homophobia.

<i>Naz & Maalik</i> 2015 American film

Naz & Maalik is a 2015 American drama film written and directed by Jay Dockendorf and starring Curtiss Cook Jr. and Kerwin Johnson Jr. It follows two closeted Muslim teenagers over the course of a summer afternoon, as their secretive behavior and small-time scheming accidentally lead them into the crosshairs of FBI surveillance.

<i>Hotel Mumbai</i> 2018 action thriller film directed by Anthony Maras

Hotel Mumbai is a 2018 independent action thriller film directed by Anthony Maras and co-written by Maras and John Collee. An Indian-Australian-American co-production, it is inspired by the 2009 documentary Surviving Mumbai about the 2008 Mumbai attacks at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in India. The film stars Dev Patel, Armie Hammer, Nazanin Boniadi, Anupam Kher, Tilda Cobham-Hervey, Jason Isaacs, Suhail Nayyar, Nagesh Bhosle, and Natasha Liu Bordizzo.

<i>Les Misérables</i> (2019 film) 2019 film directed by Ladj Ly

Les Misérables is a 2019 French crime thriller film directed by Ladj Ly in his full-length feature directorial debut, from a screenplay by Ly, Giordano Gederlini and Alexis Manenti, based on Ly's 2017 short film of the same name. Manenti stars alongside Damien Bonnard, Djebril Zonga, Issa Percia, Al-Hassan Ly, Steve Tientcheu, Almany Kanoute and Nizar Ben Fatma.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elegance Bratton</span> American filmmaker and photographer

Elegance Bratton is an American filmmaker and photographer. He began his career in the 2010s, writing, directing, and producing a variety of projects including the short film Walk for Me, the reality television series My House, and the documentary film Pier Kids.

Steven Silver is an American actor, known for his roles in 13 Reasons Why and Council of Dads.

For many years, LGBT representation has increased on animated series and animated films. In the 1990s, LGBT characters were depicted in animated series like South Park, The Ambiguously Gay Duo, and The Simpsons. In the early 2000s, LGBT representation increased in Western animation, culminating in GLAAD's "Where We Are in TV" report in 2005, even as representation was disparate. In the 2000s, series like Queer Duck, The Oblongs, The Venture Bros., Drawn Together, and Archer aired. It would not be until the advent of shows like Steven Universe, The Legend of Korra, and Adventure Time in the 2010s, that LGBT characters in animation would gain more of a prominent role, leading to shows such as She-Ra and the Princesses of Power in 2018 and Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts in 2020, along with other series in the 2020s.

I Am Syd Stone is a Canadian short drama film, directed by Denis Theriault and released in 2014.

<i>Two Distant Strangers</i> 2020 short film

Two Distant Strangers is a 2020 American short film written by Travon Free and directed by Free and Martin Desmond Roe. The film examines the deaths of Black Americans during encounters with police through the eyes of a character trapped in a time loop that keeps ending in his death. Two Distant Strangers won the award for Best Live Action Short Film at the 93rd Academy Awards, marking distributor Netflix's first win in the category.

References

  1. 1 2 Beandrea July (September 8, 2019). "The Obituary of Tunde Johnson: Film Review - TIFF 2019". The Hollywood Reporter .
  2. Amy Nicholson (September 8, 2019). "Toronto Film Review: The Obituary of Tunde Johnson". Variety .
  3. 1 2 Tre'vell Anderson (September 6, 2019). "Police Brutality and Homophobia Inspired This Groundbreaking Film". Out .
  4. Amanda N'Duka (October 16, 2018). "Ali LeRoi To Helm The Obituary of Tunde Johnson Drama". Deadline Hollywood .
  5. "The Nominees for the 33rd Annual GLAAD Media Awards". GLAAD. 2022-01-21. Retrieved 2022-01-22.