With an extraordinary acting ensemble and an astute sense of cinema, Malcolm Washington’s memorable directing debut continues his father Denzel Washington’s (Fences) project of adapting playwright August Wilson’s work to the screen. Set in 1936 during the depths of the Great Depression, Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize–winning story of siblings battling over legacy is riveting. Boy Willie (the director’s brother John David Washington, BlacKkKlansman), a sharecropper, wants to sell an heirloom piano in order to buy land that his family once worked as slaves. But his sister Berniece (Danielle Deadwyler, Till, MVFF45) insists on keeping the instrument, which is embellished with images carved by their enslaved great-grandfather of his wife and son. The inimitable Samuel L. Jackson costars as their Uncle Doaker, who attempts to mediate the dispute but is disturbed by ghosts of the past in this beautifully rendered, searing drama exploring identity, birthright, and generational trauma.
The Piano Lesson:
With an extraordinary acting ensemble and an astute sense of cinema, Malcolm Washington’s memorable directing debut continues his father Denzel Washington’s (Fences) project of adapting playwright August Wilson’s work to the screen. Set in 1936 during the depths of the Great Depression, Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize–winning story of siblings battling over legacy is riveting. Boy Willie (the director’s brother John David Washington, BlacKkKlansman), a sharecropper, wants to sell an heirloom piano in order to buy land that his family once worked as slaves. But his sister Berniece (Danielle Deadwyler, Till, MVFF45) insists on keeping the instrument, which is embellished with images carved by their enslaved great-grandfather of his wife and son. The inimitable Samuel L. Jackson costars as their Uncle Doaker, who attempts to mediate the dispute but is disturbed by ghosts of the past in this beautifully rendered, searing drama exploring identity, birthright, and generational trauma.
Danielle Deadwyler began her career in native Atlanta on stage before making her screen debut in A Cross to Bear (2012). Over the next decade, she acted in both features and shorts, as well as television series, where she recurred in the long-running series To Have and Have Not, was a series regular on Paradise Lost (2020), and starred in two miniseries Station 11 (2021–22) and From Scratch (2022). Her feature films include The Harder They Fall (2021), I Saw the TV Glow (2024), and Till (2022), a film honored at MVFF45 and for which she received BAFTA and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations for her riveting performance as Emmett Till’s mother Mamie.
The Festival throws the spotlight on Danielle Deadwyler and honors her with an MVFF Award for her latest triumphant role in The Piano Lesson.
