Insecure‘s Broderick Hunter takes the lead in Cameron J. Ross’ short film, They Come. They Go., now available to view on Amazon. Shadow And Act’s Trey Mangum chatted with Hunter about his role and what it was like being a part of the film.
“I knew Khadija [Shari], my co-star, for quite some time, and then Cameron just so happened to go to her party at the time,” said Hunter, adding that Cameron spoke of needing a leading male for his film and asked if he would star. Of course, as fate would have it, that man would be Hunter.
“We literally just chopped it up over coffee one day…and two or three months down the line, we just really started executing and we shot it for about five days straight,” Hunter said. “It was a passion project, everybody…just made our schedules work and made it happen.”
They Come. They Go. is a mostly silent short film, and for Hunter, the challenge was a learning experience.
“With it being a silent piece it was really just more so a focus on the emotional connection between me and Kadijah because silence is, in my opinion, a lot more difficult to achieve because we could easily express ourselves verbally and talk things out,” he said.“But with this particular piece, it was really focused on 90 percent of the communication being nonverbal, so focusing on that aspect alone and trying to navigate through the certain scenarios that were in the film and the timeframes that were in the film…it was really just a hurdle to accomplish that because that was the first silent film I’d done. But it was fun, it was a new experience.”
The film also focuses on two darker-skinned Black people in love, a rarity in Hollywood. This fact wasn’t lost on Hunter, who talked about the importance of showing Black love on-screen. “It was a pleasure because I’m always pro-Black love, I’m very pro-Black women especially. So to have that opportunity to actually do this on this type of scale where it’s on Amazon and people can see it…I feel like it’s a very big responsibility for us as creatives and as talent…to continue to push these agendas because Hollywood isn’t going to do it for us,” he said. “…We have so much dark-skinned Black love out there, it’s just not put out there like that on TV and movies. So with this particular piece, it was very important that we aided to that agenda and making sure that people saw Black love in a positive way but also in a real way.”
The film’s focus on Black love isn’t all–They Come. They Go. also has an all-Black crew including photographer Juan Veloz handling the film’s photobook series, hip-hop artist Sylvan LaCue curating the soundtrack, and Black PR, graphic design and marketing teams. The film’s pro-Black stance in front of and behind the camera shows what’s possible in Hollywood.
They Come. They Go. also stars Patrice Covington, Monica Veloz, Keith Antone, Kelli Rasmus, Tiffany Black, Priscilla Waler, Chy Fontenette, Corey Ellison, Brandon Ja and Ross himself, who recurred in the most recent season BET’s Boomerang series.
You can watch the full interview below.
They Come. They Go. is streaming on Amazon now.
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Photo: They Come. They Go.
