Alum Justin Simien’s “Dear White People” acquired by Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions
March 26, 2014
After winning the award for Breakthrough Talent award at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, writer/director Justin Simien’05, continues to garner rave reviews, along with festival screenings and successes, with his feature film Dear White People.
The film was recently acquired by Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions and is scheduled to screen at MOMA’S New Directors/New Films Festival, which runs from March 19 through March 30 in New York City. Below is an excerpt on the film by the Wall Street Journal (you can read the full article on the website).
The 27 feature-length movies and two short-film programs in this year’s festival, which begins Wednesday at the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art, promise more such discoveries.
None arrives with as much advance buzz as “Dear White People,” a word-of-mouth dynamo at January’s Sundance Film Festival, where the director, Justin Simien, won a special jury prize for breakthrough talent. The button-pushing film about a quartet of African-American students confronting race issues on an Ivy League campus satirizes white attitudes toward black culture. But it also looks deeper than the implications of its title, the name of a popular Twitter account Mr. Simien used to test the barbed, fast-paced dialogue. – Steve Dollar, Wall Street Journal
For more information on the New Directors/New Film at MOMA, visit the festival’s website.