Sinners star Delroy Lindo is sitting in the director’s chair for the first time in his career with the family drama Jabari’s People. Leading the cast is Winston Duke (Black Panther), Marianne Jean-Baptiste (Without A Trace), Wendell Pierce (Jack Ryan), Lindo and Seyi Andes-Pelumi in his debut role.
Per The Hollywood Reporter, Jabari’s People follows a Jamacian family “set between Brooklyn and Jamaica’s Blue Mountains and centers on Jabari, a gifted but defiant Brooklyn teenager who is sent to live with his estranged grandparents following the sudden death of his mother. 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.”
Andes-Pelumi stars as Jabari with Duke as his overwhelmed father, Jean-Baptiste and Lindo as his grandparents and Pierce as a doctor in the Brooklyn community. The film also features Rolando Alberts, Sekai Smart-Macaulay, Kimberly Patterson, Jeff Crossley, Kadeem Wilson, Sule Thelwell, Everaldo Creary and Djamari Roberts.
The script was written by Daoud Abeid and Dakhil Hausif and Lindo gained the rights to it in 2021. “I’ve had a pinch me moments as actors have had turned in performances or said lines in a certain way that was on the page,” Lindo said to THR. “They’re bringing the actual words to life. I’m pinching myself and saying, ‘Oh, it’s really happening.’”
Filming has already been completed following a 22-day shoot with the production wrapping in Kingston, Jamacia. As of now, there is no word of a release window for the film.
