British visual artist turned narrative filmmaker Steve McQueen is getting back in the director’s chair following the success of his award-winning Hunger. Variety announced this week that McQueen will be joining forces with Focus Features to make a biopic about Nigerian musician and activist Fela Anikulapo Kuti (also, coincidentally, the subject of the high-profile new Broadway musical Fela!, produced by Jay-Z, Will Smith, and Jada Pinkett Smith). Since Fela’s death in 1997, the influence of Afrobeat, the fusion of American jazz, funk, and West African drums that he is credited with creating, has been widely acknowledged. McQueen, along with Biyi Bandele, will adapt the script from Michael Veal’s book Fela: The Life and Times of an African Musical Icon. Focus’s James Schamus tells Variety, “Fela was a revolutionary figure in world culture, and Steve is an artist who had a strong vision of politics and the world even before he made his first film. They are kindred spirits.”
2008
96 min
Color
2.35:1
Categories: News
1 Comments
Fri 19 Feb at 09:30 PM
Kenny
I’m very excited for McQueen’s next film. Hunger is in my opinion a masterpiece.
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