FX has chosen Janicza Bravo to direct the adaptation of Octavia E. Butler’s novel Kindred. Mallori Johnson, who will play Dana in the production, will collaborate with the critically renowned Zola director. Bravo is most known for her work on the dark, dramatic comedy Zola. Still, she has also directed other significant shows, including FX’s Atlanta and Mrs. America, Amazon’s Forever and Them, and HBO’s In Treatment. Mallori Johnson is represented by Brillstein Entertainment Partners and is a recent Juilliard graduate. The actress will make her television debut in Kindred.
Butler will also serve as an executive producer on the film adaptation of her famous science fiction novel. Dana, a young woman who finds herself pushed back and forth in time, will be played by Mallori Johnson, a newcomer. Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, a playwright and Watchmen veteran, is adapting the novel.
Kindred is a notable science fiction novel set in 1976 in Los Angeles, California. Dana is a young aspiring Black writer, as she travels back in time to a pre-Civil War Maryland plantation. Butler examines the relationship between a 1970s educated woman who is aware of slavery’s past in America and the challenges, struggles, and horrors of slavery via Dana.
The narrative is a fantastic read that delves into questions of power, gender, and race, both in her journey back in time and in her present existence. The novel was first published in 1979, but it has remained very popular since then, with many college students reading it.
What are other notable projects of Bravo?
Janicza Michelle Bravo Ford, an American film director, producer, and screenwriter, was born on February 25, 1981. Bravo began her career as a writer and director of short films. Eat, a film starring Katherine Waterston and Brett Gelmann that premiered at the 2011 SXSW Film Festival and was picked up by Vice, was her first film. Her second film, Gregory Go Boom, a dark comedy released in 2013, won the Sundance Film Festival’s short-film jury award.
Bravo’s directing credentials include episodes of FX’s Atlanta and Mrs. America, HBO’s In Treatment, and Amazon’s Forever and Them, in addition to the critically acclaimed Zola. UTA, 2AM, ID, and Lichter Grossman represent her. Brillstein Entertainment Partners represents Johnson, a recent Juilliard graduate.
Who else are the crew and the production members of Kindred?
The book will be adapted for the movie by Branden Jacob-Jenkins, who shares the honor of being a MacArthur Genius Grant Winner with Butler. Watchmen is Jacob-Jenkins’ most well-known work. In 2008, Courtney Lee-Mitchell purchased the rights from the Octavia E. Butler estate, and FX, a Disney-owned cable network, has now purchased the rights from Lee-Mitchell.