By Emilio Frenk
Today ata full capacityBing Theater at the LACMA Museum in Los Angeles took place the screening of “Queen Sugar”, TV Show produced by Oprah Winfrey and created by director Ava DuVarney who had critical acclaim with the 2014 film “Selma”.
The 5th episode of the show was screened tonight and I was very impressed with the story of the show and the quality of the work. The episode was moving and one of the things that this show has is the fact that all the episodes in this first season were directed by female directors which is an approach that I am very happy that is happening right now.
After the screening of the show, Elvis Mitchell curator of Film Independent at LACMA had a conversation with Winfrey, DuVarney, and the cast of the film which were Rutina Wesley, Dawn-Lyen Gardner and Kofi Siriboe who played the main characters of the show.
Hearing all of them talk was such a great delight and you can tell that they were excited to work with both Winfrey and DuVarney and at the same they had an enourmous respect and admiration for both women who without a doubt they have became the most influential women in Hollywood.
The showis based on the book by Natalie Baszile and DuVarney shared that when wrote the episodes she wrote them as adaptations of the book. Of course this was a base of trail and error but Winfrey always her trust on her and kept writing until she found the correct voice to the characters and to the audience.
Winfrey mentioned that she was always excited and wanted to work with DuVarney again after the success that they both had with Selma, which scored two Academy Award Nominations (Best Picture and Best Song which won by the song Glory by John Legend and Common) and Winfrey mentioned that they just got a second season and hopefully we can see many more of them.
I admire the fact that are female directors behind the camera and they are directing high quality material and the episode that I saw tonight was just fascinating.
The performances of the actors were convincing from the beginning to end and the fact that the conflicts of the characters are being illustrated makes it even more interesting and as an audience member I became more engaged with them and wanted to know more about them and like me the rest of the audience felt the same way.
If you haven’t watched an episode of “Queen Sugar” I do think you are going to enjoy it and it’s being broadcasted in Oprah Winfrey Network.
