George Tillman Jr’s The Inevitable Defeat of Mister & Pete has been selected as the 2013 closing night film for the Hollywood Black Film Festival (HBFF), announced this afternoon by Tanya Kersey, Founder and Executive Director of the festival.
The Inevitable Defeat of Mister & Pete will close out the 13th annual edition of HBFF on Sunday, October 6, 7pm at the Montalban Theater, 1615 Vine Street, Hollywood, CA.
Codeblack Films/Lionsgate will release George Tillman Jr.’s The Inevitable Defeat Of Mister And Pete in theaters on October 11.
The drama stars Jennifer Hudson, Skylan Brooks, Anthony Mackie, Jordin Sparks, Jeffrey Wright, and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, in a film that sees Hudson as a drug addict mother whose arrest forces her son and his best friend to fend for themselves.
During a sweltering summer in New York City, 14-year-old Mister’s hard-living mother is apprehended by the police, leaving the boy and nine-year-old Pete alone to forage for food while dodging child protective services and the destructive scenarios of the Brooklyn projects. Faced with more than any child can be expected to bear, the resourceful Mister nevertheless feels he is an unstoppable force against seemingly unmovable obstacles. But what really keeps the pair in the survival game is much more Mister’s vulnerability than his larger-than-life attitude. The Inevitable Defeat of Mister and Pete is a beautifully observed and tremendously moving film about salvation through friendship and the way transformation sometimes can happen just by holding on long enough.
Skylan Brooks leads the cast as the titular Mister.
The script was penned by Michael Starrbury, and by co-produced by Alicia Keys.
Zeba Blay saw the film at the Sundance Film Festival this year and reviewed it for S&A, which you can read HERE. In short, she dug it. In fact, you’ll see a quote from her review within the trailer that’s embedded below.
HBFF 2013 runs October 2 – 6, and features an inspiring line up of films, panels, panelists, and special events. For more information and to see a full line up of events, visit www.hbff.org.
