NYU grad Shaka King became one of the most talked about filmmakers at the Sundance Film Festival this year. We’ve got the inside scoop.
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ewlyweeds,” is a feature film concentrating on the lives of Nina (Trae Harris) and Lyle (Amari Cheatom), and their complicated relationship with marijuana. The film, which writer-producer Shaka King, a Brooklyn native, created after graduating from Tisch School of Arts at New York University, delivers a comedic display of the love connect the two have with weed and how it slow destroys their relationship. The ability to create “Newlyweeds” with a crew developed from the Emerging Narrative workshop at the NYC Independent Filmmaker Project. A post-production grant was also allocated to King by Rooftop Films/Edgeworx Studios. The film was shot in Bedford-Stuyvesant, the Brooklyn neighborhood where King grew up. Lyle works a 9-to-5 job with an electronic and home appliance rental company while Nina heads tours at a nearby museum. Throughout the film, weed is used to help Lyle find his escape from his miserable job while Nina is a carefree spirit who enjoys the peace that is associated with the high. Both characters throughout the film find themselves is a series of misadventures that ultimately ruins their love affair. King explained that Spike Lee serves as a “template” for black films. “When people think black film they think Spike Lee. [I am] a black filmmaker, a black man [from] Brooklyn and 10 • SPRING 2014
Filmmaker Shaka King at the 2014 Sundance Music Festival. Photo Credit: Kevin Winter/Getty Images an NYU grad,” King said. “In terms of his influence on my filmmaking, [it’s] his use of color in ‘Do The Right Thing’ and the way he chose to shoot [Joe’s Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads] were films influential [to me]. I was heavily influenced, cinematically [by Spike Lee]. In terms of showcasing blackness, it’s an expansive concept. Even just the concept of blackness is expansive. The 2013 Sundance Film Festival was an opportunity for King to get recognition for “Newlyweeds” on a national level. It has always been a dream of King’s to get one of his films there. “I got to spend a lot of time with my cast up there. Trae, Amari and I got really close. My mother and father were there too” he said. “That was really for me the most rewarding spending time and the sense of accomplishment. The professional side was rewarding as well.” “There’s never been a stoner comedy on a couple addicted to marijuana,” King said as he explained how he conceptualized the story. “When I was writing the script I came up with characters like Lyle being a repo man. I found myself developing this outer world and then I had a messy script where he had a lifestyle and this relationship with this woman.” The premise of exploring the American lifestyle of work, home and how it affects relationships is what led him to the creation