The Berlinale has told Screen it is “full of hope” that it will host the international premiere of Kahlil Joseph’s BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions next month after the film was reinstated at Sundance.
“We are very happy that a solution was found and that BLKNWS will screen in Sundance,” a spokesperson for the Berlinale told Screen on Sunday morning. “We wish them a brilliant launch in Park City tomorrow. We will be connecting with the new rights holders and are now full of hope that BLKNWS can come to Berlin.”
Joseph’s ambitious-sounding work screens to press and industry in Park City on Sunday afternoon before Monday’s public world premiere.
Late on Saturday the film returned to the Sundance line-up after James Shani’s Rich Spirit in association with Joseph’s BN Media said they had bought the film from backer Participant.
BLKNWS was pulled from the Sundance schedule by Participant last week when the company, which shuttered last year, claimed Joseph submitted an unauthorised cut to Sundance and Berlin.
However the eleventh hour intervention of Rich Spirit changed all that. It has also enhanced Shani’s status as someone who is prepared to invest in challenging films that find themselves in challenging situations. Last summer he bought out Kinematic’s stake in The Apprentice, enabling Briarcliff Entertainment to come on board as US distributor.
On Saturday night Jospeh and BLKNWS producer Onye Anyanwu said they were “deeply grateful” to Participant and A24 – the film’s former co-financier and distributor who withdrew from the project after Covid-related delays – for “their willingness to relinquish ownership of the film”.
BLKNWS is the latest iteration of Joseph’s ongoing project that first appeared in Sundance’s New Frontier section in 2020.
The festival’s website describes it as a “boldly inventive feature” that “weaves together the journeys of W. E. B. Du Bois, Joseph’s own family legacy, and a mysterious young journalist who boards an International cruise liner, the Nautica, to cover the Transatlantic Biennial while cleverly staying undercover”.
Sunday’s P&I screening at Holiday Village Cinemas takes place at 1pm Mountain Time and Monday’s world premiere at Egyptian Theater is at 9am.
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