Compton’s Travon Free and the Six Feet Over team took home an Oscar stepping into the history books as the first African-American filmmaker to win in the live-action short category.
I will not lie. There was an audible gasp of surprise heard inside the virtual pressroom when it was clear that Mr. Boseman did not win for his mesmerizing performance in "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom.” Boseman did win the SAG Award, the Critic’s Choice Award, and a Golden Globe, to name a few.
Courtesy of Dirty Robbers
Writer and co-director Travon Free and producer Lawrence Bender discuss the time-loop story of a Black man who constantly relives the same moment and can t escape being shot by a white officer.
Most time-loop films traffic in existential comedy. Think
Palm Springs and
Groundhog Day. But while the new short film,
Two Distant Strangers, also features a time loop, the overall, suffocating feeling during its 30 minutes is one of existential terror.
The story of a Black man trying to get home to his dog after spending the night with a woman he has met, the film is a powerful dramatic take on police violence in America, situating its main character in an endlessly repeating day where he is shot, time after time, by a white cop, no matter what he does.