Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor directs a moving preview of Ava DuVernay’s latest drama

Ava DuVernays Origin The teaser trailer is designed to stir your emotions ahead of its world premiere tomorrow at the Venice Film Festival. DuVernay was the first African American director to compete in the Venice Film Festival’s 80-year history. She wrote, produced and directed OriginInspired by the remarkable life and work of Pulitzer Prize winner Isabel Wilkerson as she writes her seminal book, Caste: The source of our dissatisfaction. NEON recently acquired the worldwide rights Originwith a gala screening at the Toronto International Film Festival.

“As Isabel grapples with a tremendous personal tragedy, she embarks on a journey of global research and discovery.” read the film’s official press release. “Despite the colossal scope of her project, she finds beauty and courage as she writes one of the defining American books of our time.”

Aunjanue Ellis Taylor (King Richard, Lovecraft country) leads the cast, with Jon Bernthal (The bear, The Punisher), Vera Farmiga (Bates Motel, orphan), Audra McDonald (private practice, Beauty and the Beast), Niecy Nash-Betts (claws, I have never), Nick Offerman (Parks and Recreation, The last of us) and Blair Underwood (Deep Impact, Rules of engagement).

Tom Quinn, CEO and Founder of NEON said: “I have known Ava for a long time and my love and admiration for her and her work stretches back even further, even before Middle of Nowhere. I’m really honored that it was this film that finally brought us together. She has always been a gifted storyteller, and her mastery of her craft is showcased in this deeply personal and inspired adaptation of Isabel Wilkerson’s book and dramatization of her remarkable life. Origin proves once again that Ava remains one of the most groundbreaking and important filmmakers of her generation.”

Here is a synopsis of Wilkerson’s novel about Amazon:

In this brilliant book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores how America today and throughout its history has been shaped through an immersive, thoroughly researched and beautifully written narrative and stories about real people, a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human precedence.

Beyond race, class, or any other factor, there is a powerful caste system that affects people’s lives and behavior and the destiny of the nation. Connecting the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars underlying the caste systems of different civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more. Through compelling stories about people – including Martin Luther King Jr., baseball player Satchel Paige, a single father and his young son, Wilkerson himself and many others – she shows how the insidious pull of caste is experienced every day. She documents how the Nazis studied the racial systems in America to plan their expulsion of the Jews; She discusses why the cruel logic of caste requires that there be a bottom echelon against which those in the middle can be measured; She writes about the surprising health costs of caste, depression and life expectancy, and the impact of this hierarchy on our culture and politics. She concludes by pointing out how America can move beyond the artificial and destructive divisions of human divisions to the hope of our common humanity.

Original and insightful, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents is an eye-opening tale of people and history, and a reexamination of what lies beneath the surface of ordinary life and American life today.

In the Origin In the teaser trailer, DuVernay recreates Wilkerson’s gripping novel with intense atmosphere, soulful cinematography and a moment with Aunjanue Ellis Taylor that left me holding my breath. With the film premiering at the Venice Film Festival tomorrow, we don’t have to wait long to start thinking about DuVernay’s latest project.