The film, written and directed by Desmond Faison (best known as “Dude” from Black & Sexy TV’s web series "The Couple" and also the founder of FINC Entertainment), chronicles the final three days of the ill-fated friendship between Lazarus James and Thurgood Jacobs, and stars Tracey Duke and Deji LaRay.
Here’s an official synopsis: "In this 120 minute feature, we watch as a childhood friendship shaped by necessity, turns to an adult one of comfort. Local drug dealer Thurgood Jacobs (aka T), and his closest friend Lazarus James (aka L) have been in the business for years. Our story find the two just days before T’s 30th birthday. With the wear and tear of the business weighing on his conscious, the Police bearing down on his team and a purported rat in their ranks, T wants out. However L, who has always had somewhat of a sinister influence over T’s decisions somehow convinces him to stick it out for this one last big score. When a budding relationship between T and the area’s newest neighbor Amy takes a sudden and unexpected turn, T and L find themselves, for the first time, truly at odds, and even worse, at opposite ends of a barrel. A friendship finally revealed for what it is and a momentary mental fracture creates a perfect storm for what happens next."
It was released worldwide on VOD, on August 2nd, on Vimeo.
“With Killing Lazarus, we are creating a way for today’s most successful content creators to pave their own way – circumventing the movie industry’s gatekeepers to provide high quality, original content directly to our audiences via the web,” said Faison.
The result of this kind of “direct to audience” approach is that viewers could start seeing more diverse feature films that are more reflective of their tastes and responsive to their feedback.
FINC Entertainment Group has created content with some of today’s most recognizable talent including LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, and Nick "Swaggy-P" Young. Production partner Dormtainment has taken the sketch comedy world by storm, boasting over 700k YouTube subscribers and recently produced a new media series for Comedy Central. Commonly referred to as one of the web’s most accomplished content creators with just under 200k YouTube subscribers and millions more views, Issa Rae has produced content alongside megastars like Pharrell Williams and is the co-creator and writer of the HBO pilot "Insecure."
A trailer for "Killing Lazarus" follows below. To watch the film in full, visit Vimeo, where you can rent it.
