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In the era where Hollywood is increasingly promoting the agenda of diversity and inclusiveness in movies, with calls to hire more people of color and women, it seems a great movie like “Fast Color” should have gotten off to a better start.
The film, which stars three black actresses (Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Lorraine Toussaint, and Saniyya Sidney) as a family of 3 generations of black women coming to terms with their superhuman powers, is going practically unnoticed and under-marketed.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, there wasn’t a single print ad for the #fastcolormovie anywhere, and only a mere 25 theaters feature the film which is distributed by Lionsgate.
While expressing her gratitude in front of an audience at a recent screening of the movie, Filmmaker Julia Hart also spoke about the “lip service” from Hollywood hotshots, who seems to talk a good game but are slow on the follow-throughs.
“There is so much lip service in this industry about wanting women to tell stories, wanting people of color to tell stories, wanting to tell stories about women and people of color,” said Hart, who directed the film and co-wrote it with her Oscar-nominated producer husband Jordan Horowitz, with whom she collaborates through their production company.
So far the movie has grossed $68,373 as of May 7th and the filmmakers believe the movie is lost in the confusion of white, male “gatekeepers” who simply don’t know how to market a film that is made for everyone but them.
“There were women and people of color at every company that loved the movie — some men and some white men,” said Hart, who premiered the film at SXSW in 2018. “At the end of the day, when it got to the white male gatekeeper — time and time again — they said, ‘I don’t know who this movie is for. I don’t know how to market it.’”
This is where the breakdown will continually lie for “diverse” filmmakers who want an opportunity to make commercially successful films that resemble stories and characters that look like us.
Fast Color is out now in limited release in very limited markets.
