Winston Duke, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Wendell Pierce and newcomer Seyi Andes-Pelumi have been set to start alongside Delroy Lindo in Jabari’s People, a Jamaican-set family drama marking Lindo’s directorial debut.
The feature recently wrapped a 22-day shoot in Kingston, Jamaica, according to The Hollywood Reporter‘s exclusive report.
What is ‘Jabari’s People’ about?
Written by Daoud Abeid and Dakhil Hausif, the intergenerational family drama is set between Brooklyn and Jamaica’s Blue Mountains and centers on Jabari, a gifted but defiant Brooklyn teenager sent to live with his estranged grandparents following the sudden death of his mother. Per the production notes, “what begins as exile becomes an unexpected journey through grief, family, identity and inheritance as the land and community force Jabari, and three generations of his family, to confront wounds that have long gone unspoken.”
Who stars in ‘Jabari’s People’?
Andes-Pelumi stars as Jabari, the teen determined to reject his grandparents, while Duke plays his overwhelmed father. Jean-Baptiste plays the emotionally intuitive grandmother, and Lindo plays the disciplined grandfather. Pierce plays a doctor in the family’s New York community. The cast also includes Rolando Alberts, Sekai Smart-Macaulay, Kimberly Patterson, Jeff Crossley, Kadeem Wilson, Sule Thelwell, Everaldo Creary and Djamari Roberts.
Lindo says he first encountered the story in 2015 as a potential acting role in an indie film that ultimately fell through. When the rights became available in 2021, he optioned them, telling THR, “From the time I got the rights, I knew I was going to direct this. It touched me in my soul as a person of Jamaican extraction.”
Lindo produces via his Mudtop Productions banner, alongside Robert A. Maylor, Lena Cordina and Natalie Thompson. Susan Rockefeller, Regina K. Scully and Melony Lewis executive produce. IAG represents the film’s distribution rights.
Featured image photo credit: Photo: Provided by Crunchyroll
Leave a Reply