Back in January, Joe Talbot's The Last Black Man in San Francisco opened at the Sundance Film Festival to rave reviews. Ultimately, the A24 drama bagged the Directing Award and the Special Jury Award for Creative Collaboration in the U.S. Dramatic categories at the fest's 2019 edition. Now, A24 is giving the general public a glimpse at the latest from the director of the well-received 2017 short American Paradise.
San Francisco stars Jimmie Fails (American Paradise), Rob Morgan (Stranger Things), Jonathan Majors (White Boy Rick), Tichina Arnold (Martin), and Danny Glover. The latter handles narration for the new trailer, released Thursday.
"We built these ships, dredged these canals, in the San Francisco they never knew existed," Glover says. "This is our home. You two, stick together." Per the film's Sundance synopsis, San Francisco centers on Jimmie Fails as he tries to reclaim the Victorian home built by his grandfather in the heart of the city.
Prior to production, the film was further described as a "doc-fiction hybrid" including details taken from Fails' real life.
"I started writing music for this film before even envisioning the world on camera," Talbot toldFilmmaker magazine back when press on the film centered on its successful Kickstarter fundraising campaign and the project's strong local support. "I don't want to make a gritty urban realism drama; I want a different tone and a romantic feeling. So, I'll write a melody on piano, and then isolate [and sample] a violin note from an old 78. It's a strange and tedious process."
The Last Black Man in San Francisco is set for release this summer.
